<p>ucbalumnus is absolutely correct. I took Algebra in 8th grade (Jr high) and the teaching was horrible. No homework (if there was it was rarely turned in or checked), barely any tests and no quizes between them. Most of the time kids in my class chatted and played board games or something. Some of the more determined students ended up reading the textbook and tried to teach themselves! It was pretty bad and the teacher ended up getting fired and replaced about 2 months before the school year ended. But the damage was done - what was the school gonna do? Hold back everyone to do algebra again when we were all slated to go to another school?</p>
<p>Needless to say, they “passed” us all and I went straight into Geometry in 9th grade. Had an F after the first couple weeks and thankfully the teacher really cared and talked to me on the side. He suggested I retake algebra so I switched classes and luckily there too was a tacher who cared and actually taught and assigned homework, etc. Went on to Geometry, Adv Algebra and Pre-Calc by Sr year. But you can imagine if that geometry teacher just strung me along with maybe a D and tried to pass me to Adv Alg. . . I would have been so far behind and so screwed. Obviously I wasn’t the only one affected in that 8th grade class.</p>