Reply to Double up on Math at JR?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Just FYI, Deal has said that after this school year, they will no longer be allowing any students to double up on math, per DCPS policy. So that policy may well extend to JR too, even if they allowed doubling up in the past. [/quote]

Thanks. So the only option if my kid wants to go beyond pre-calc in high school is to take summer math at some point? [/quote]

I am not trying to complicate your decision...but again, I don't think they care in HS if you decide to take two "math electives" at the same time.  Pre-Calc, Stat, Calc AB and Calc BC are considered electives and not required Math.

If you want to follow the progression and not double up Pre Calc and Calc, then yes you should plan to take say Geometry over the Summer.  DCPS has an approved vendor list (many, maybe all virtual), but you want to make sure you get sign-off from the school / DCPS prior to registering.  [/quote]

What counselor or admin is allowing kids to take PreCalc and AP Calc at the same time? That makes absolutely no sense.  And your elective logic makes no sense.  Spanish III and Spanish IV are both electives.  It doesn’t mean you take them at the same time.  There are sequences to courses.

This is NOT the same as taking Geometry and Algebra II the same year.  That happens pretty frequently in high schools.

[/quote]

I am not employing any elective "logic".  Simply stating that since these classes are electives, there are often no institutional restrictions to taking them together.  I bet a kid could in fact take Spanish III and Spanish IV at the same time if that is what they wanted to do.  Just so happens it occurs more frequently in Math.

FWIW, the kids I know that double up on Precalc anc Calc are advanced in Math.  Not sure why they did not accelerate earlier (and some were transfers).  Many had already had exposure to PreCalc, but not in a way that gave them DCPS credit.  [b]Honors Precalc is also not a heavy lift (the new AP Precalc may be more?)[/b].  These kids wanted to be done with Calc by Junior year (they all got a 4 or 5 on the AP Calc BC test) and then take AP Stats Senior year (which is a much easier class).

Again, I am not a proponent of this progression, but simply conveying what I know some kids have done historically.[/quote]

Interesting.  [b]In many districts (and private schools) the new AP precalc curriculum is a fraction of the material of their traditional precalc class.[/b]   Many are not offering AP precalc for this reason.

By it's very nature precalc is an ambiguous class.  At some schools it's pretty simple and almost all algebra 2.  At others it overlaps most of the material of AP calc AB.

My one kid is now in private (other two are in DCPS) and went from his school's honors pre-calc class to his school's AP Calc AB class and has since realized that fall of AB will be entirely review of what he learned last year in.  We're 4 weeks in and that's definitely the case.  He probably should have done BC but that class is known to be a beast (1.5 hours of homework a night, maybe 2 As given to a class of 20 kids).  He elected to focus on humanities instead because he was pretty beaten up by honors pre-calc (also a beast---a handful of As (maybe 4?) out of 30 kids)  [/quote]

I’m the poster just above you, and I assume the premise is that AP pre-calc is setting kids up to move straight into AP Calc BC or college-level calculus (for seniors taking AP pre-calc). So it’s less review and more…calc. [/quote]

Quite the opposite. AP Precalc is for humanities and marketing majors who will never take an class at AP calc AB or higher.

"AP" Precalc is worthless to anyone who takes Calc AB or college Calc 1, because they won't get college credit for Precalc. But it's useful for people who need a math credit and will not take non-Marketing calculus. [/quote]

I mean…I have a kid in it, who is an accelerated math kid and will take BC next year. And I had a kid take honors. They have compared notes, and AP is more accelerated.

But I’m sure it also serves the purpose you note. Both things can be true![/quote]

That's wild.  In most districts and private schools AP precalc is significant (like 50%) less rigorous than their long-standing standard pre-calc curriculum.   I have no idea what DCPS pre-calc was teaching if it was less than the AP pre-calc exam.  DCPS is such a joke.  [/quote]

Folks, this is the first year AP Precalc has been offered.  It is literally 1 month into its existence.  Not sure how anyone is claiming how rigorous or not AP Precalc may be as there is no historical information on which to make such a judgment.[/quote]

Administrators have seen the AP precalc standards.  They are super low and don't cover many districts' on-level pre-calc class, let alone honors.  That is why most publics and every private I know has not made the switch to AP pre-calc.  They don't want to significantly dumb down their current pre-calc class. 
[/quote]

I can't weigh in on what supposedly other schools think.  All I know is that probably 90% of my kid's AP PreCalc class will take AP Calc BC next year.  Certainly at JR, almost nobody taking grade level Precalc is signing up for any calculus.[/quote]

I agree, re: composition of the AP pre-calc class at JR. I also know that my kid who took honors pre-calc before AP was offered felt very well-prepared for Calc AB. So if the honors curriculum is as terrible as everyone says, it at least seems to have worked for my kid (who had a terrible algebra 2 teacher, so it’s not like they got the prep there and didn’t need pre-calc).

I’m not sure we know enough to know whether those taking honors pre-calc won’t take Calc. But it’s certainly plausible that that’s the way it will go.[/quote]

My older kid who took honors PreCalc at JR also thought he was prepared for BC Calc...but he still didn't think PreCalc was a hard/challenging course. Maybe it was the pacing.  I recall in my HS days in the late 1980s that PreCalc was a 1/2 year course, as was Algebra II and you took them junior year of HS.[/quote]

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