Reply to 9th grade - Alg 2 or Alg 2 Honors

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]From my experience watching two kids go through and stay on the accelerated track, I think the most important thing to know is that, in our HS at least, math is the only subject in which the honors designation actually seemed to mean what it meant in past decades.  The best clue for this is that it was pretty much the only subject in which there are separate classes for Honors and grade level kids.  For both of my kids (one graduate, the other a current junior), math has consistently been the most challenging class they have taken.   Honors pre-calc (the 10th grade class on this path) is particularly challenging. It worked out fine for them, because they both generally got math, but they had to work hard at it.

Challenge isn't necessarily a bad thing, and if your kid is ultimately interested in a stem path or enjoys math, it could be worth it to take that on.  OTOH, you and they have to decide, based on your kids' particular interests and abilities, how much effort it will take to master the material and what other classes/paths they will balance it with.

I would have your kid ask their teacher what the teacher's advice is for them for next year.  One option is to register for honors, and then see how it goes for the first week or two and drop down to grade level if it seems like it's too much.

In terms of college if that matters to you, there is probably no benefit in taking H Alegebra II and then dropping down to grade level for pre-calc (although the honors class will better prepare them for the next level).  My point being that if thinking about college, as opposed to her education, life balance and mental well being, is key to the decision, realize that you'd have to stay on this track for the long haul for it to matter.[/quote]

For college admissions there is a benefit for taking Honors Algebra 2 in the weighted GPA boost if the school allows it. That’s why accelerating less and taking all honors geometry, algebra 2, and precalculus is preferable, besides mastering the material better.

Honors precalculus is harder and AP Calculus is even more so. I don’t disagree it’s important to choose the right course level for the child, not only for mental health reasons, but also because they learn more and better when the material is a reasonable challenge but not overwhelming.

The issue here is that the student was accelerated two years ahead typically recommended for the top 5-10% of the cohort, that ended up with a B, indicative of being in the top 30-40%, so something went wrong. That’s why posters say these students should not get B’s, supposedly they are the very best and it should be easy for them to get an A (top 20%, but there days it’s actually more than that).

It’s possible the child gradually started to struggle and it was not caught early because of the lax grading in middle school, or the parents pushed for acceleration when the student was not ready, which I think is the more likely explanation.[/quote]

As a parent of a child who is similarly a B student in honors geometry, I can promise you, it’s not the latter.  Or at least, not consciously.  In our case, we were encouraged to push our child into this accelerated track by the elementary teachers originally and to be honest, it’s hard to predict how a 4/5/6 grader will do in 7/8 honors math, especially in a pandemic.  [/quote]

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