Reply to Adding a year in elementary school

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. It’s more wishful thinking on my part. We love our elementary school and wish that both kids have an extra year in it. But yes I recognize that 6-8 makes more sense.[/quote]
Kids start taking highschool classes in seventh grade.  It’s good to have a year prior to that where they can get used to being in middle school without it tanking their highschool transcript.  Especially since they got rid of grades in elementary school.  Also moving sixth grade to elementary school would limit the advanced math track since you couldn’t have pre algebra in sixth grade then.[/quote]

I think that this a problem, high school type classes jn middle school. It's way too much work and homework. [/quote]
I am assuming you don’t have kids in middle school or highschool.  The highschool classes aren’t any more work than their other classes.  They just are considered highschool classes and your grade matters a little more since it sticks around.  Kids don’t have to take highschool classes in middle school, but it’s a pre-req for things like going to tj or doing the in program. You can’t take ap calculus as a senior in highschool if you don’t take algebra as an 8th grader.  That’s a high school class.[/quote]

Not the immediate PPP. I don't think the issue is too much work and homework; but I don't think it's sound educational policy to push such advanced (two grade levels up) math in middle school. The issue isn't the amount of work, it is an issue of the students not being sufficiently grounded in/mastering the fundamentals. Yes, they can "do" the work and get decent grades; but the lack of true understanding of the concepts is showing up at the higher levels (high school and college - many who took Calculus in high school are being required to retake it in college because of this.)[/quote]
[b]Besides math, the two other highschool classes kids taken in middle school is language (pre-req to do the ib program at w-l) and geography as an 8th grader.  Isn’t it supposed to be easier to acquire a language the younger you are (wasn’t that the argument for fles)?  I personally agree that taking algebra as a 6th grader (which is allowed in Loudoun/fcps) or a seventh grader should be reserved for truly advanced kids.  [/b]But taking algebra as an eighth grader was the norm when I was in school over thirty years ago!  
 I really think kids would be at a disadvantage with peers from other counties/states if they don’t have the opportunity to take highschool classes in middle school.  Since language at least is a pre-req for the in program, having sixth grade in middle school is a very nice transition year before grades “really count”.  If they still had grades in elementary school, I would agree it doesn’t matter.  [/quote]

Yes, I agree with this part. I don't see language or even geography as a problem in middle school. Math is unique and I believe it is very different to keep pushing advanced mathematics younger and younger when it's showing up as a problem later (kids dropping out of advanced math pathway in high school because it's too hard; having to repeat calculus in college because the aren't sufficiently grounded in the fundamentals, etc.) You don't put a 6th grader in Latin 3 without having mastered Latin 1 and 2. And that's one of the differences. We aren't skipping years of language; whereas we are jumping ahead/overly condensing the math.[/quote]

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