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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]BC Calc is also optional.  [/quote]

I am not sure that this is true for the students that start in 5th grade. Without excessive excelleration, they should be able to make Calc BC by 11th grade.[/quote]

[quote]I think the requirement is Calculus AB maybe not even AP.  The good news is that Sean Aiken said to us that if that was all you have left as a requirement to complete senior year you can do the whole senior project thing -  you just cannot do it in Iceland (there was a video of a kid in Iceland).

The other good news is that math is the only subject you can fail and still be promoted - you still have to take the class over again, however - be it 6/7, 7/8, Pre-algebra, Algebra I, Algebra II with Geometry, Precalculus, or AP Calc AB or (I assume if you take and fail BC, you have to do it over again).

But there are a lot of different pathways here - there is doing Pre-Algebra or going straight from 7/8 to Algebra I, and even after that there is a 2 year PreCalculus option.  I have been asking around, and most kids who take AP Calculus BC go straight to it - they do not take AP Calculus AB.  So I think the AB course is there for two reasons:

1) for the kids who start 5th in Algebra I, to basically give them two years to get it (60% of the BC exam is AB material over again) because Tom Davison (the math teacher who was here when BASIS DC started said that BASIS schools regularly produce 9th and 10th graders whose average is close to 5 on the BC exam

2) to provide kids who are not that great in math a softer kinder Calculus course - that was how my question started - what if you find math really difficult and only get to Calculus senior year, would that prevent a student from doing the Capstone courses and Senior Project?  And the answer was no, but you would have to stay in the city to take Calculus (you might be able to take it in Arizona though, interesting possibility....)

The real issue is that even when kids start in 5th grade, sometimes the math instruction they have gotten has been so poor that if you put them in 7/8 (which is according to BASIS where kids should start out) they will be lost.  Hence 6/7 - it is not the fault of the kids, it is the fault of the DCPS from whence they came.  But I think it is better to meet them where they are and gradually move them up than having them repeat 7/8.  Tom was absolutely shocked the first year by how many kids did not know basic basic basic math.  And if you don't know it, you are never really going to be able to succeed because you won't even know if your answers are off by a huge order of magnitude, for example.

If you took all the courses and failed none of them, starting with 6/7, including Pre-Algebra and two years of PreCalculus you would hit Calc AB senior year, not BC by 11th.  By contrast, if you start in 7/8, push all the way through even with two years of Precalculus you are hitting BC by 11th.  But I think the early acceleration is designed for truly math oriented kids (or kids who are good at it and just want it out of the way) because then they can move on to college courses - which is now the gold standard for advanced math kids, that they do differential equations or multivariable calculus or whatever courses while still in high school.

Back in my day we just packed those kids off to college early.  But many of the private schools have this option, I don't know about public schools in DC.  Our big advantage is skipping (or incorporating) Geometry into Algebra II.  Why waste a year on it.  But if you leave, you will have to take Geometry, even if you took the AP Calc exam and scored highly because it is a requirement for graduation at Wilson, at least.  Oh and same at Walls, and World History possibly at both.  Makes no sense to me, but the second HOS went to Walls and Wilson and argued and begged and no dice.  But that was the kind of guy he was - standing up for the 9th graders who had made the decision to leave.  [/quote][/quote]

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