Reply to Algebra 1 at 6 grade?

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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]Any test/pre-screening/evaluation by MCPS? Or just by individual middle school? Thx...[/quote]

Most MCPS schools don't do this, but a few in the wealthier areas will accelerate kids with 250+ map-m. [/quote]

My kid got a 5th grade winter MAP of 270. Should I push for this? (I’m not inclined to)[/quote]

When mine was in 5th, they also scored in the 270s. Our home school doesn't offer this as an option. Sure, they could've easily handled Algebra, but it gave them more time to absorb the material. By the end of the 6th, they were scoring in the 290s, so they seemed to be doing fine. They're headed to Blair SMCS and will probably be in the same class with kids a year ahead of them. In the end, it made no difference.[/quote]

It's done to keep the kids at the home school vs. leaving for private or other situations.  [/quote]

Just so it’s clear the above is NOT the reason people try to prevent this.  The real reasons are that AlgII and above require more abstract thing and more application of skills.  Allowing kids to mature helps with this.  Also, Maryland requires 4yrs of math in HS.  Students taking Alg1 in 6th will most likely have to go to the HS in 8th for Alg2.  A class that typically has a range of 9th-11th graders.  Some of ya’ll nor your kids are prepared for what goes on in HS.  Further, the student will then be taking Calculus in 10th grade.  So the question becomes what are they going to take Jr/Sr year especially if they aren’t planning to major in something that requires really advance math.[/quote]

And, what about the kids who are planning a major requiring math.  Yes, we are preparing our kids.  Worse case they take classes at MC or UMD.[/quote]

Even if they are planning to major in math, those classes will still be there when those kids get to college. It's not a substantial admissions advantage to take M/V Calculus in high school, in the current climate, because it is usually correlated with being located in an affluent school district or having hyper-involved parents. Neither of those things is opening any doors for any majors at this point. [/quote]

We can all agree that learning more math than MCPS wants to offer is not for everyone. MCPS serves 15K students per grade level, so catering to the extreme outlier edges is a pain in the neck, even before getting into all the political strife.

But that doesn't change the fact that there are 100 or more kids in each  grade who can handle deep / advanced math, and who prove it in AoPS classes, AMC/AIME contests and more.

TPMS offers Magnet versions of AIM/Alg/Geom that enrich deeply without advancing. 
They teach probably and set theory and number theory and 
other "abstract things" that some papers and MCPS claim middle schoolers can't handle.

That's great. If other schools offered that, it would probably satisfy a lot of people. But they don't, so kids who are good at math are trapped being bored in class and annoying their classmates and teacher, being stuck sitting through lies like "negative numbers don't exist" in elementary school and "square root of -1 does not exist" in middle school.
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Can you stop with all the tpms as everyone has said it’s not traditionally done there and it’s not the only ms where smart kids go.   Obviously some kids can handle it.  [/quote]

Please reread what you quoted, more carefully. [/quote]

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