<p>Thank you for your post perfomersmom (#178). Not only do I agree completely with you and not only was my daughter’s experience the same as your daughters’, but the differences became even more pronounced at the college level where reading and writing expectations leaped dramatically. My daughter reported reading 100-150 pages of dense text in preparation for particular classes.</p>
<p>As to the original focus of this thread, I think it’s right that those who can accelerate should be able to do so at the speed that works for that kid. The approaches taken are so different in different schools that the sequence barely seems sequential or universal. In one school, I’ve seen kids allowed to test into whatever math class they land in and beyond that are given different levels for each class. At another, everyone is forced into taking the same sequence regardless of proven mastery of a higher class. And at one highly rated public school, “Geometry” bears little relationship to the “Geometry” class given in the neighboring, similarly rated district. When these kids get to college, most of them retake calculus and find that their high school class did not actually take them through the subject.</p>