Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I spoke to a teacher who teaches Algebra i in middle school and she said only consider Algebra I in 7th IF your kid is interested in Math AND scores in the 95th percentile or higher on the IAAT. She said in her opinion 91th percentile is too low of a threshold. The class uses high school level books, moves fast, lots of homework, and will count on the high school transcript. Kids who are not ready will also struggle in Algebra II because the won't have the foundation.

MoCo was the same way when I was there, but they opened algebra to far more students. It's insane how much FCPS builds up algebra as a difficult class when it really isn't

It is intended to be this awesome, in depth class. Taught well it starts to bring together the how and why of everything they've done up to this point in their math careers, along with discovery of really cool abstract mathematical concepts that will set the foundation for the next 4 years of math. When too many kids who aren't quite ready yet enroll, it gets watered down and is disappointingly basic and just becomes procedural learning. Then no one benefits and parents cry, "See! It really is easy!"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I spoke to a teacher who teaches Algebra i in middle school and she said only consider Algebra I in 7th IF your kid is interested in Math AND scores in the 95th percentile or higher on the IAAT. She said in her opinion 91th percentile is too low of a threshold. The class uses high school level books, moves fast, lots of homework, and will count on the high school transcript. Kids who are not ready will also struggle in Algebra II because the won't have the foundation.

MoCo was the same way when I was there, but they opened algebra to far more students. It's insane how much FCPS builds up algebra as a difficult class when it really isn't

It is intended to be this awesome, in depth class. Taught well it starts to bring together the how and why of everything they've done up to this point in their math careers, along with discovery of really cool abstract mathematical concepts that will set the foundation for the next 4 years of math. When too many kids who aren't quite ready yet enroll, it gets watered down and is disappointingly basic and just becomes procedural learning. Then no one benefits and parents cry, "See! It really is easy!"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I spoke to a teacher who teaches Algebra i in middle school and she said only consider Algebra I in 7th IF your kid is interested in Math AND scores in the 95th percentile or higher on the IAAT. She said in her opinion 91th percentile is too low of a threshold. The class uses high school level books, moves fast, lots of homework, and will count on the high school transcript. Kids who are not ready will also struggle in Algebra II because the won't have the foundation.

MoCo was the same way when I was there, but they opened algebra to far more students. It's insane how much FCPS builds up algebra as a difficult class when it really isn't

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I spoke to a teacher who teaches Algebra i in middle school and she said only consider Algebra I in 7th IF your kid is interested in Math AND scores in the 95th percentile or higher on the IAAT. She said in her opinion 91th percentile is too low of a threshold. The class uses high school level books, moves fast, lots of homework, and will count on the high school transcript. Kids who are not ready will also struggle in Algebra II because the won't have the foundation.

MoCo was the same way when I was there, but they opened algebra to far more students. It's insane how much FCPS builds up algebra as a difficult class when it really isn't

Anonymous wrote:If you have a raw score of 53/60, what is the likely percentile? Does anybody have an idea?

Anonymous wrote:If you have a raw score of 53/60, what is the likely percentile? Does anybody have an idea?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have to get 90% on each section to qualify, or just overall?

It's not a percentage, it's a percentile. Your student needs to score higher than 91% of all students who take the test. The score is calculated in total, not per section.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the IAAT test offered to all students or AAP only? What is a raw score on average in the past that tends to put you over the 91 percentile? I understand that percentile depends on the difficulty of questions and the aptitude of the students appearing for a given year.

The IAAT is only given to six graders who are in AAP or level IV math. There are 60 questions, so a student would have to get at least 55 of them correct.

Nope, It's 91st percentile, not 91%. So a kid needs to do better than 91% of the kids taking the test. Is that nationally, in the county, in the school?

Nationally.

Interesting. I asked DC's 6th grade AAP teacher, and was told that she thought it was Fairfax County, but could be the state of Virginia. If nationally, that gives a huge edge to FCPS kids as they typically score higher than the national average on standardized tests.

Your child's teacher is a moron. Think about it: Only the kids in AAP and Advanced math are even allowed to take the IAAT. That's maybe 30% of the FCPS 6th grade population. If you need to be in the 91st percentile of that group, that's equivalent to being in the top 2.7% of the entire FCPS 6th grade cohort. Or, to put it another way, assuming 14,000 6th graders in FCPS, only 378 would be allowed to take Algebra in 7th. This is very obviously not the case.

They also stretch the rules at some schools. Every middle school that lets 7th graders take algebra 1 needs enough 7th graders taking it to be able to offer geometry in 8th. Obviously this is irrelevant for middle schools that will have more than enough qualify, but it does come into play with some school.

DD goes to one of those middle schools that should have "more than enough qualify", but plenty of kids from her class that did not qualify either got in anyway, or did on appeal.

DD really wants to take algebra next year, but is a slow test taker. She's had perfect SOLs in math every year she's taken them. We've already told her that if she's too slow on the IAATs but gets her normal SOL score that we'll fight to get her in.

Why would you do that? Don't set her on a path to calculus in 11th grade if she's a "slow test taker".

She's a slow test taker who scores perfect or nearly perfect on every math test she has ever taken. I took algebra in 7th and thought it was of the easier math classes that I ever took

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When does FCPS notify parents of the results?

Within two months:
https://www.fcps.edu/student-assessment/grade-level-tests/grade-6

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I spoke to a teacher who teaches Algebra i in middle school and she said only consider Algebra I in 7th IF your kid is interested in Math AND scores in the 95th percentile or higher on the IAAT. She said in her opinion 91th percentile is too low of a threshold. The class uses high school level books, moves fast, lots of homework, and will count on the high school transcript. Kids who are not ready will also struggle in Algebra II because the won't have the foundation.

MoCo was the same way when I was there, but they opened algebra to far more students. It's insane how much FCPS builds up algebra as a difficult class when it really isn't

The bigger issue is if you sit in algebra for a year in 7th grade and are over your head, you have no way to recover. You can't go back down. It's a big leap for a borderline kid.

Suppose you take algebra in 7th but really struggle. You expunge the grade to save your high school transcript. Then what? Retake the course and still struggle because you're missing foundations? Move down to prealgebra (going from 2 years advanced to on level?) Suppose you take algebra again in 8th. You muddle through and get a B, then move on. You will never be taught how to solve an equation with variables on both sides. This is covered for weeks in math 7 honors, covered for a day in algebra 1 as review, and then utilized for the rest of your high school career.

It's not a hard class at all for a kid with solid foundations. It moves exceedingly quickly though compared to all prior math classes, so a kid who struggles needing time to process will struggle without solid foundations or outside help.

I've taught 8th grade algebra for years and years at one of those schools that lets in kids with below a 91. They almost all, with the exception of 1 really unique kid, have struggled immensely that first quarter. I think they would have been fine in gen ed algebra, but the honors course throws in quite a few extensions from algebra 2 if taught fully, and it's just too much for a kid who is lacking math fluency and quick applications.

They didn't say they didn't have solid foundations, just that they needed more time to get through questions. It is quite possible that someone could do very well in Algebra 1 while scoring less in this way on IAAT.

Anonymous wrote:Do you have to get 90% on each section to qualify, or just overall?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I spoke to a teacher who teaches Algebra i in middle school and she said only consider Algebra I in 7th IF your kid is interested in Math AND scores in the 95th percentile or higher on the IAAT. She said in her opinion 91th percentile is too low of a threshold. The class uses high school level books, moves fast, lots of homework, and will count on the high school transcript. Kids who are not ready will also struggle in Algebra II because the won't have the foundation.

MoCo was the same way when I was there, but they opened algebra to far more students. It's insane how much FCPS builds up algebra as a difficult class when it really isn't

The bigger issue is if you sit in algebra for a year in 7th grade and are over your head, you have no way to recover. You can't go back down. It's a big leap for a borderline kid.

Suppose you take algebra in 7th but really struggle. You expunge the grade to save your high school transcript. Then what? Retake the course and still struggle because you're missing foundations? Move down to prealgebra (going from 2 years advanced to on level?) Suppose you take algebra again in 8th. You muddle through and get a B, then move on. You will never be taught how to solve an equation with variables on both sides. This is covered for weeks in math 7 honors, covered for a day in algebra 1 as review, and then utilized for the rest of your high school career.

It's not a hard class at all for a kid with solid foundations. It moves exceedingly quickly though compared to all prior math classes, so a kid who struggles needing time to process will struggle without solid foundations or outside help.

I've taught 8th grade algebra for years and years at one of those schools that lets in kids with below a 91. They almost all, with the exception of 1 really unique kid, have struggled immensely that first quarter. I think they would have been fine in gen ed algebra, but the honors course throws in quite a few extensions from algebra 2 if taught fully, and it's just too much for a kid who is lacking math fluency and quick applications.