Reply to DS struggling in 8th grade Algebra 1 Honors

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "DS struggling in 8th grade Algebra 1 Honors "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Who was pushing his math? Most math teachers will tell you acceleration is NOT the best path for most. It’s the non-math school officials that often are ones pushing and THEY DONT KNOW YOUR KID!

I was not a fan of Lucy Culkins “why teach them vocabulary or to spell” when that was being pushed by FCPS but maybe that is better than the make all kids take algebra before ready when absolutely no reason for all kids to take in MS.[/quote]

The County is pushing hard. All of this was reported in posts on this board last year.

Last year FCPS dropped the IAAT as a measure for taking Algebra 1H in 7th grade, kids were allowed to enroll with a pass advanced on the 7th grade SOL. Kids in advanced math and 6th grade APP who had selected Math 7H were placed in A1H without checking with parents, parents had to opt out even when they had already selected Math 7H.

Kids in Math 7 who had selected Math 8 were enrolled in A1H as 8th graders, parents had to opt out and move the kid to A1 or back to Math 8.

Two weeks before school started, 20 ES were notified that they were going to be part of a pilot program for A1H in 6th grade. Two weeks before school parents were notified that their kid had been placed in A1H as a 6th grader and that they had 2 weeks to opt their kid out of A1H as a 6th grader. Teachers and schools had two weeks to prepare a HS level math class that they had not been expecting to offer.

Ried has said that she wants every child to have Algebra 1 in 8th grade so that they have an opportunity to take Calculus, which is a strange goal because not every kid needs Calculus and close to 75% of the kids in the county have taken Algebra 1 by 9th grade already. I have no idea why this goal seems to have lead to additional acceleration in math beyond FCPS already accelerated program.

I don't have a problem with 6th graders taking A1H, I don't think that there are thousands of kids who are ready or need Algebra in 6th grade; the pilot has 700 kids in it at 20 schools. I don't have a problem with A1H offered to 7th graders, I suspect that there were already kids struggling with the class and that the net was too large before they dropped the IAAT requirement.

OP, let your kid drop to regular Algebra 1. There is no problem with that. He will still be able to take AP Precalc and AP Calculus. He is not failing out of HS taking a regular level math class. [/quote]

Adding to your list, absolutely no thought has been given to what happens to the 6th grade algebra takers when they finish all the math available at their HS. If don’t go to TJ, not sure any HS has-or if they do, very few have- math classes past multivariate calculus. Kids may be having to take online or go to NOVA community. And don’t even begin to talk about how doesn’t work for IB- right now just taking algebra in 7th is a mess because kids finish their IB math as a junior but if want full diploma (the highest), cannot take test for that until 12th. The 6th grade algebra takers will have 2 years between finishing the math they have to take a test on and when they can take test. It’s just NOT thought out and experimenting on kids.[/quote]

Our school is playing with the idea of having those kids either take math applications (2 years) and not test followed by math analysis (2 years) and test on that, or having them delay testing.  Likely we will offer both. Kids regularly delay testing by 1 year already and almost unanimously do fine on it--they are intelligent kids who are using a large portion of the analysis concepts in further math classes.  Another option is to offer a full year dual enrollment junior year and a 1 semester dual enrollment class senior year, then second semester hold an "analysis review" seminar if the numbers are that high anyway.  Schools are working towards making it work as much as possible.[/quote]

So it’s not in place now? Just ideas?[/quote]

Right now it is only an issue for 1 child in the whole school. Why would we make a new class for 1 child?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics