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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Thank god. I remember reading the original slides on VMPI and calling my Delegate as well as the Delegate Candidates to say this was a voting issue for me.  The original YouTube videos and proposal was all about detracking math and making it harder for kids to take Calculus and other higher level math classes. It was bad.

It didn’t hurt that enough parents in NoVA complained about the proposal and forced those responsible to make some drastic changes to the proposal.

I voted Democrat in the last election but I am glad to see the ridiculous proposal flushed.[/quote]

agreed - if VA is like other "progressive" districts across the country, they'll pinky-swear to remove detracking and then just do it anyway. some people said that a promise was good enough...no, it's really not. I'm all for the other part of VMPI - substituting more stats/probability in place of advanced calc, but this was never the main thrust of VMPI[/quote]

There is a very long, multi-year process to change the curriculum. After they published the draft it would go through a long approval process including public feedback. There is no way for them to sneak it in.

And it wasn’t the “main thrust” at all. It didn’t even make the infographic.

Stop lying. 
[/quote]

The infographic changed. I am not a protesting type personality. I have been to two political rallies in my life, one was when I was 3 and my Mom took me to a march with her, and I got on the phone with my Delegate and the Governors office and I sent an email to the VMPI team because I was concerned with what I saw. They were very much discussing detracking and playing down the need for Calculus for students.

I agree that not everyone, heck probably most people, don't need calculus. I never took calculus. But the way they were discussing changing math and emphasizing that calculus was available in college and not really needed for most kids in high school and that probability and stats is so much more useful made it clear that the changes were going to harm kids who ar strong in math and should be on a path for calculus and other higher end math courses. That might not be have been me in school but it is my DH and my DS. DS is likely to be in Algebra in 7th grade. He is strong in math and enjoys math, it is his favorite class at school. It was hard enough getting him into Advanced Math in third grade, the changes VMPI was proposing would have made it harder for him to be able to take advanced math in high school.

Shortly after I saw their original presentation and sent my emails and made my calls, the proposal started to shift. There was a good amount of outcry from NoVA which probably influenced the changes in the proposal. If the most Democratic section of the state was reacting to the proposal in a negative manner, then that was a sign that there was something politically problematic about the proposal.

I have no clue if Loudon County changed its policies because of VMPI. I do know that there seems to have been a shift in attitudes about math acceleration in the area, Loudon's changes and MCPS has changed it's math acceleration program. Obviously MCPS is not influenced by VMPI but the fact that math programs in Maryland and Virginia are revisiting the idea of math acceleration. The idea that there needs to be a track for high performing math students seems to be a bit of an educational hot topic. I don't know where the line is drawn that Algebra is being taught at too young an age is, I am not sure that Algebra in 6th grade is a great idea and then I look at my 4th grader who is solving basic Algebra problems in his RSM class and I return to not knowing where the line is.

And for the record, we are white and I am a Democrat. [/quote]

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