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Reply to "APS for a bright engaged student - APS in decline?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am a fan of differentiation and I get why it would be a problem not to offer it, my understanding is that there are three math tracks in middle school (or at least in sixth grade). Also my  sixth grader is very bright and is plenty challenged in her language arts and humanities classes. So I don’t know, it might be a teacher thing. [/quote]

They cancelled the highest track last year, because of the pandemic and everyone missing a quarter of the instruction, so now there are only two. Language arts needs more differentiation since there are kids who literally just arrived to the US and neither speak nor read English in the same classes as kids who are reading at a HS level. It’s impossible to serve such a spectrum adequately.[/quote]

This is not quite right.  There are always two math tracks in 6th grade, but usually it's Math 6 and Pre-Algebra for 6th Graders.  This year, they changed it to be Math 6 and Math 6 Extended (which replaced Pre-Algebra) because, as you said, they need to incorporate the missed material from 5th grade and so can't get through the full pre-algebra curriculum.  This year's 6th graders will have access to the three different math classes next year (Math 7, Pre-Algebra for 7th Graders and Algebra I, Integrated), although there may be some slight shifts in the syllabus for Algebra I to account for what wasn't covered in Math 6 Extended.  After that, the kids have a lot of options for math tracks for the rest of middle school and through high school.

Also, at least at the 6th grade level, there is effectively a differentiation available for Reading as well.  Instead of taking full-year Reading, students can also take an intensified semester-long Reading class and then take Spanish in the second half.  It's unclear if this will continue to be an option after this year, though, since FLES was discontinued in the elementary schools.[/quote]

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