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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a child who did Algebra in 6th and a child who did Algebra in 7th.

The benefit of a fast track is:

1. Avoiding boredom and being appropriately challenged.
2. Getting noticed positively for college admissions (although these days a lot of students take Algebra 1 in 7th, so in itself that's not newsworthy).

[b]The disadvantages are:[/b]

1. [b]Getting into difficulties later in the more advanced math classes. [/b] Age-old question: is it better to have straight As in an easy class, or Bs in a hard class?

It's not always possible to know in advance how your child will do. I'm the sort of person who is willing to try, and then support my kids with tutors, or teacher them myself at home, or, if need be, take a slower track (although that never happened). 
[/quote]
There is no evidence for the claim that you "get into difficulties later" - it's politically motivated misinformation that was spread by, for instance, proponents of VMPI.

The longitudinal numbers show a different picture: students who are screened to take Algebra I earlier do better in it and they do better later.  (Run SOL statistics, for instance.)
[/quote]

I know multiple kids who were identified as gifted, scored well, and accelerated in math by two years.  They ended up taking a less adv math (not honors) because they were struggling. It made them hate math. Too many kids are being pushed to do algebra in 7th IMHO. There should be stricter standards for accelerating that much. 
[/quote]

Nah, they should start Algebra earlier but offer a more applied/business/engineering but still honors version. [/quote]What do you mean? School algebra is applied. Hence the presence of word problems and the absence of things like the difference between range and codomain.[/quote]

That's not because it's applied, it's because codomain isn't particularly important until you get into mappings between differently shaped spaces like in Linear Algebra.

In Algebra 1, the codomain is so obvious as to not be worth naming. [/quote]

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