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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Calculus could always be offered. You can offer any course. The key question is whether students are prepared to do well in a course. By watering down content to only big ideas in VMPI's Grade 8-10 courses, most Algebra 2 and Precalculus content would have been compacted into one year. This would have undermined students' preparation for calculus.[/quote]

They have pre-calculus broken out as a separate class.

And these are just examples, each school district would continue to define their own course offerings as they do today.

Today, there isn’t even a VA standard for precalculus and yet many districts offer it. The standards are the minimum skills that should be taught; they aren’t limiting. 
[/quote]
VMPI offered a one semester course on Trig and a one semester course Pre-Calculus: Focus on Functions that were to be taken the same year. That is where nearly all of Algebra 2 content (with its functions emphasis) would have been housed. In that regard, it would have been like San Francisco's compacted Algebra 2 and Precalculus course that failed so many kids.

In practice, VMPI's Grade 8-10 courses would have covered pared-down Prealgebra, Algebra 1, and Geometry content plus data analysis content, with just a pinch of Algebra 2 thrown in so they could claim Algebra 2 was included.[/quote]

That all needed to be hashed out and reviewed. They never had the chance to put out a proposal so you’re speculating. 
[/quote]
No, they had laid it out internally. Which is why they knew to specify in their Infographic that Grades 8-10 courses would only generate two high school credits, consistent with covering only Prealgebra, Algebra 1 and Geometry. If Algebra 2 had been included as well, Grades 8-10 courses would have generated three high school credits.

As an example. Pre-VMPI, a student taking 8th grade Algebra 1 would have earned three high school credits by 10th grade (Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2). But under VMPI, they would only have two high school credits by 10th grade. Thus, rigor and content was being reducing for advanced kids. And even the two high school credits earned in VMPI's Grades 8-10 was generous. VMPI was only going to include big ideas in Grades 8-10 that were relevant to all students; content only needed by some students was to be dropped, thus pushing the bar down to the lowest common denominator. Data literacy was to be added in Grades 8-10 courses but while learning how to use spreadsheets is useful, it's not mathematically rigorous.

Thus, advanced students would have gotten hit with a double whammy under VMPI - fewer high school credits by 10th grade and less rigorous content underpinning the two high school credits they would have earned by 10th grade. That is why public push-back was so strong from all parts of the political spectrum.[/quote]

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