Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 17:11     Subject: Why Math is so weak in private schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Sidwell advanced math is very strong..every year has admits to places like Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford for math

That's BS. Sidwell hardly sends kids to MIT or Carnegie Mellon. Maybe once every five years.


Sidwell can pull its weight for math. There are two to MIT this year. There has been one to MIT in the last few years. The one who went to Carnegie Mellon last year is in accelerated Math with sophomores. The one who went to Harvard last year is in Math 55. Also got into Cambridge for math. One of the kids who is going to Harvard this year may take Math 55. Math 55 is the hardest undergraduate math class in the country. Sidwell always has a few very strong math students who may not even major in math.

This is largely due to the parents. Not the school especially, considering this school failed to investigate serious allegations of misconduct involving one of their employees I'm the 90's because he was a powerful head of school in Seattle with connections to a billionaire/Epstein associate
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 17:09     Subject: Why Math is so weak in private schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:People think acceleration means superior math knowledge. There is plenty of resesrch that shows acceleration isn’t best practice for most students and leads to gaps. Private schools take math slow and steady so the students understand the concepts and move on ready for the next math class. Don’t compare that with over accelerated and inflated grades from public

You're drinking way too much of the cool aid there. Most private school students in college today are extremly undeprepared. This is my experience at a private school and a state school in 2014-2018


That’s quite a claim. My own children went to private schools and breezed through college.

I’m also a teacher in a private high school. I keep up with many of my students, who return for our alumni events. They’re doing quite well.

Okay, I suspect your children didn't have a serious major and/or went to a private college that has an incentive to retain low performers.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 16:44     Subject: Why Math is so weak in private schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Sidwell advanced math is very strong..every year has admits to places like Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford for math

That's BS. Sidwell hardly sends kids to MIT or Carnegie Mellon. Maybe once every five years.


Sidwell can pull its weight for math. There are two to MIT this year. There has been one to MIT in the last few years. The one who went to Carnegie Mellon last year is in accelerated Math with sophomores. The one who went to Harvard last year is in Math 55. Also got into Cambridge for math. One of the kids who is going to Harvard this year may take Math 55. Math 55 is the hardest undergraduate math class in the country. Sidwell always has a few very strong math students who may not even major in math.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 16:37     Subject: Why Math is so weak in private schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Sidwell advanced math is very strong..every year has admits to places like Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford for math

That's BS. Sidwell hardly sends kids to MIT or Carnegie Mellon. Maybe once every five years.


Every 4 years that Sidwell sends ONE child to MIT, SIdwell blasts it all over social media for the next 4 years. Sidwell never blasts the median child who ends up at UMD.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 16:28     Subject: Why Math is so weak in private schools?
If anyone still thinks that Math curriculum and instruction is somehow worse in privates, then one might want to go read the current thread about APS Math over in "Other VA public schools" forum.

There is no paradise. Math instruction is a US national problem if compared with many other countries.

There also have been threads about this issue for other public schools in other DCUM fora within the past while.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 16:15     Subject: Why Math is so weak in private schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:People think acceleration means superior math knowledge. There is plenty of resesrch that shows acceleration isn’t best practice for most students and leads to gaps. Private schools take math slow and steady so the students understand the concepts and move on ready for the next math class. Don’t compare that with over accelerated and inflated grades from public

You're drinking way too much of the cool aid there. Most private school students in college today are extremly undeprepared. This is my experience at a private school and a state school in 2014-2018


That’s quite a claim. My own children went to private schools and breezed through college.

I’m also a teacher in a private high school. I keep up with many of my students, who return for our alumni events. They’re doing quite well.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 16:12     Subject: Why Math is so weak in private schools?
My kid at a top private (known for its rigor) didn’t go beyond Calc BC but is thriving in college in a STEM field. I was worried for a while that they didn’t have the advanced math classes that some publics have, but being incredibly well prepared given the classes they could take has been great for our kid.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 15:50     Subject: Why Math is so weak in private schools?
Anonymous wrote:People think acceleration means superior math knowledge. There is plenty of resesrch that shows acceleration isn’t best practice for most students and leads to gaps. Private schools take math slow and steady so the students understand the concepts and move on ready for the next math class. Don’t compare that with over accelerated and inflated grades from public

You're drinking way too much of the cool aid there. Most private school students in college today are extremly undeprepared. This is my experience at a private school and a state school in 2014-2018
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 14:27     Subject: Why Math is so weak in private schools?
Think about it. Why do engineering departments accept a disproportionate amount of foreign born students?
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 14:23     Subject: Why Math is so weak in private schools?
Anonymous wrote:Sidwell advanced math is very strong..every year has admits to places like Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford for math

That's BS. Sidwell hardly sends kids to MIT or Carnegie Mellon. Maybe once every five years.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 14:00     Subject: Re:Why Math is so weak in private schools?
Anonymous wrote:A lot of the math programs mentioned in this thread are not standalone curricula. Some private schools are weaker in math than others but you can’t tell which is which by looking at the course titles. You’d have to see the objectives covered in the course to compare.

I have a current student at an area private school who is in advanced math at the correct grade level and this school covers more objectives than public schools do in the area. I can tell just by looking at my kid’s homework occasionally and asking him what he is doing in math regularly. I was a certified math teacher so I am familiar with the scope and sequence.


Which curricula are you talking about? I don’t see people here mentioning anything specific, just generic Calc AB or outside programs like AoPs.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 14:00     Subject: Re:Why Math is so weak in private schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Because acceleration doesn’t work and it doesn’t help students become engineers it actually hurts.


How does it hurt?


DP. If students are fuzzy on concepts they learned years ago it could hurt them.

Many top engineering programs will only let students place out of the first level calculus class so kids will be repeating any material learned beyond that.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 13:48     Subject: Re:Why Math is so weak in private schools?
A lot of the math programs mentioned in this thread are not standalone curricula. Some private schools are weaker in math than others but you can’t tell which is which by looking at the course titles. You’d have to see the objectives covered in the course to compare.

I have a current student at an area private school who is in advanced math at the correct grade level and this school covers more objectives than public schools do in the area. I can tell just by looking at my kid’s homework occasionally and asking him what he is doing in math regularly. I was a certified math teacher so I am familiar with the scope and sequence.
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 13:38     Subject: Why Math is so weak in private schools?
Anonymous wrote:In DC. It's a myth that privates are weak in math, Andover has THE math program. My kids were both in magnet programs and we tutored the heck out of them. One is in med school now and the other one at MIT. Everyone tutors. I was tutored in private school when I was a kid and I'm old.


Everyone tutors with tutors? Or classes like Russian Math, Kumon, and AoPS, or something else?
Anonymous
Post 04/12/2025 13:31     Subject: Re:Why Math is so weak in private schools?
Anonymous wrote:There is the argument that accelerated doesn’t mean they have better math knowledge, but for kids actually strong in math that isn’t true at all. Parents like that argument because it makes them feel that their kid is getting something as good, but in reality they just don’t know what they are missing.


This. Some people here saying, “what’s the point of acceleration?” Well, learning would be one reason. Going faster and further isn’t for everybody but for kids that have a great base and can really handle it, it works well.