I held my kid back a little bit, not pushing kid#2 to be too advanced. She did graduated high school with AP Calculus BC, but that’s normal for the AP crowd, nothing unusual. Math for kid #2 was her resting subject. Fast forward to college she still comes out ahead in math course, very high grade in finals and exams in Math classes that require writing proofs. The kind of classes that almost 30% with students got D, F and W. This is the kid that her kindergarten teacher had to send me a note to help her learn how to count to 100. No tutoring help of any kind, not even help from her parents.
So for parents who read this, I say it depends on the kid’s natural ability, don’t panic. Let your kids enjoy school.
“I think we should be concerned about the right learning level for the kids in all core subjects.” Absolutely. But I’m not aware of a school which grade-accelerates in subjects like English or History. Ours doesn’t allow it. And I think it’s also less important. A talented kid can read a book and write a paper that may be more sophisticated than the next kid’s. They won’t learn as much as they might have in a more advanced class with more difficult reading material and more sophisticated peers, but they are still learning. But once you understand algebra1, there really isn’t much more to say about it. You aren’t going to learn more by being dragged through another 50 examples of problems you already know how to do. A good teacher could come up with more for these kids, but that’s generally not going to happen. The potential for wasting time doing busywork from which they learn absolutely nothing is much greater in a math class than in an English or history class.
I think another reason why parental expectations may not match reality is grade inflation. A parent whose kid is coming home with A’s may not realize that a lot of kids are coming home with A’s and it’s not as impressive as they may think.
^ My kids’ middle school has 2 levels of language art and social science classes. One level is for the normal kids and one is for the GATE kids or the kids that are recommended by the teachers or promoted by the parents. The kids having strong in math aptitude will be bored in the less challenging math classes. Similarly the kids having strong reading and writing skills will be bored in the easy English classes. Busy work and challenging work are not the same.
The difference I have seen for math and other subjects is the tracking. At D’s school, in english, social studies, and science it is easy to move in and out of honors. AP classes are open to those who did very well in regular classes, you don’t have to be on the honors track all the way through. Math is different. Moving down math tracks is easy and happens frequently. Moving up requires an Act of God.
@mathyone I was under the impression that the purpose of taking a class was to understand and master the subject manner not necessarily “impress” others. Your enthusiasm and passion for the importance of advanced math is high school is evident throughout all of your posts. I also believe that other OPs views regarding the importance of a strong foundation in English and other areas are also important for a successful college experience .
At our high school, students who earn A’s in college prep classes have the option of moving into the honors level the next year, even in math classes. College prep is an option for every class except BC calc. Students earning less than a B+ at the honors/AP level must move down the next year. I do not know if there would be exceptions for students whose grade is lowered solely for failure to turn in homework.
Also, middle school tracking becomes less of an issue if students are given the opportunity to double up in high school or take a summer course. At worst, this is one less slot for another elective or summer activity.
Our high school currently tops out at BC, which actually goes far beyond what is needed to get a 5 on the AP exam according to student reports. A few (very few) students complete BC calc as juniors and then take additional classes by special arrangement.
The school my kids go to lets gifted Math kids take Math with older kids. Our neighbor’s second grader was taking Math with the 5th graders. There is a 7th grader in my 8th grader’s Geometry class, which means she will be taking Algebra 2 as an 8th grader. I’m not sure what they do when these kids run out of Math classes (since the school currently only goes up to AP Calc AB) - I have a vague idea that they might do online courses.
Edit: for reading, in elementary grades they also sort kids according to reading level - there are 3rd graders in the same reading class as 5th graders, etc. They all have reading at the same time period for this to work. In MS they just got sorted into class levels. In HS they get regular or Honors.
Calculus is one of those subjects where every school seems to handle it differently. While the College Board mandates the syllabus topics, it does not dictate the structure. So one high school’s AP Calc BC class may cover all the AB and BC topics as a first calculus class, while the HS in the next town may only cover the BC topics after a quick review of the AB topics. In my own school, courses were offered which allowed the AB+BC syllabus to be covered in either 3 or 4 trimesters.
Taking AP Lang as a junior will be invaluable to helping one write more effective essays for college applications, as well as being a strong life skill.
Our high school does the AB/BC sequence in two years, but students who have completed the sequence report that it includes what is generally covered in calc 3 at the college level as well as what is needed to score well on the AP exams. I have heard that this is not unusual for schools with the two year sequence topping out at BC.
I also noticed that the types of writing assignments that students get in the honors classes are very good preparation for writing college applications.
I used to bristle at the amount of time that frazzled kids spent on group work and power point presentations, but in the long run knowing how to do an effective presentation (and put it together within strict time constraints) has turned out to be an important skill as well. Even my engineer kid has needed to be able to present a day long presentation to prospective employers as part of the interview process, when looking for a first job and all subsequent jobs.
Taking two years to cover calculus AB and BC implies that the high school is inappropriately accelerating students in math. Students ready to take calculus in 11th grade should be the strongest students in math (two grade levels ahead), who should easily do well in a one year BC course at college pace, rather than having to stretch out what would be a year of material in college over two years in high school. But if students taking calculus in 11th grade must take it slow, should they really be that far advanced in math? Were they pushed ahead in math in middle school due to tiger parent pressure?
As homeschoolers we do not have to deal with the bureaucracy of a school system and we have the freedom of totally creating ability appropriate classes, so I cannot relate to much of this conversation b/c we have such a completely different perspective on education. But, I do have gifted children, one extremely so in the area of language. I have to really disagree with the above quote. When you have a child reading works like Milton’s Paradise Lost in 8th grade and being able to bring high levels of analysis into the conversation, yes, educationally she would not benefit from having to spend her classroom time focusing on the same works as avg peers. She is ready (and has) focused on epic poetry, novels like War and Peace, etc.
Since I also have gifted math students (Ok, she is one of those also, but she doesn’t like math. Even so, she will be taking the equivalent of BC as an 11th grader), my perspective is that a challenging lit/comp class can take strong language students every bit as far in developing appreciation for elevated language, increased writing and analytic skills, etc as a a challenging math class.
Our dd loves all things language and also immerses herself in the study of foreign languages. Her language, grammar, and reading interests exceed what most of her peers. (Most of her friends are ps students. They are amazed by what she does at home. They had a stereotype of homeschooled students before we moved here. Last year I had to drop her off early for one of her activities and she was reading a volume from the Chronicles of Narnia. One of the other teens (not a friend 
) grabbed it from dd and said rather condescendingly, “I enjoyed reading this when I was like 10.” I’m not sure where she was going to go with the conversation from that point, but she ended up apologizing to dd b/c it was actually Le Monde de Narnia: Le Lion, La Sorciere Blanche Et L’Armoire Magique and she was reading it for French.
Several things were a “must” for my D. at HS and going forward in her education.
She always created her schedule and she always did her homework. That was sufficient to get to her goal. If these 2 are not there, I do not know how one can be successful. D. was actually (coincidently) in position to turn down the Northwestern (which was one of her finalists) for another school. But it was not for college, it was later.
Letting GC to create your schedule and making homework an optional (sounds like these are 2 themes for this kid in HS) will not result in having a Northwestern as one of his options.
Man, I have to say this thread is scary. As my ID suggests, I live in fly over country, and the way kids progress through the system here is completely different than what a lot of you seem to think is the “normal” or “required” course structure, especially for Math. My son just graduated from an all boys school, his sister is a rising junior at an all girls school. In both places, the normal “smart” kid math track is Algebra 1 in 8th grade, Geometry in 9th, Algebra 2 in 10th and (at my son’s school) IB HL math in 11th and 12th or (at my daughter’s school) AP AB/BC calc in 11th and 12th. IIRC, both schools offer a kind of hybrid Algebra 1/Geometry course in 9th grade for kids who want to end with BC calc but did not take Algebra 1 in 8th grade. In my son’s graduating class of @200 boys, they put kids into MIT, Princeton, Brown, Cornell, Columbia, U Chicago, Northwestern, West Point, Dartmouth (I think), Notre Dame, UCLA along with a number of kids going into Honors colleges and other great schools. The son of a long time family friend is headed to Purdue for engineering and didn’t even take the HL math sequence. Maybe in certain pockets of the country kids are taking multi-variable calculus or differential equations in high school, but it sure doesn’t happen here.
I agree. As much as people want to focus on math levels, AP Lang and AP World were two classes I thought would help her in college the most. Learning how to write and learning how to read and synthesize a lot of information were two key skills. Then again, as reported before, the math instruction is on the mediocre side while humanities instruction is much stronger in our local high school. Despite D taking Calc AB/BC and doing well in class (but we haven’t gotten the scores back so who knows?), she is planning to take Calc I in college.
Ohiodad51, I think you see anomalies amg CC posters. Taking that level of math in high school is not the norm in any state we have lived in (and we move quite a bit.) At the local high school here, alg 2 and pre-cal seems the norm amg the 12th graders we have known. Almost every single one of them moves on the local CC or local university and just plug along. I suspect every single one of them is pretty much oblivious to the angst portrayed here on CC. (FWIW, IRL, my kids are the anomalies.)
FWIW, I wouldn’t read any thread on CC as being “scary” unless your students have their hearts set on the tippy top elites and don’t have financial and admission safeties. 
Kids that are plain ol’ hard working kids with good grades and decent test scores get admitted to universities across the country every yr and graduate and move on to successful careers.
@mom2aphysicsgeek That was an excellent post. MV calculus is not what typical high schools are teaching to typical students. It is what the best high schools are teaching to their best students. You can major in STEM at a great college, and really any college without it.
This should only “concern” you if you are an ORM and are obsessed with attending MIT, Cal Tech or an Ivy. Even in that case, you can definitely get in without it, but it may be helpful to be aware that this is what many of your top competitors for those few spots are doing.
In our district, middle school kids self select into an advanced track where they can skip 1 year ahead, so they take a combined 7/8th grade class in 6th grade, combined 8/Algebra 1 in 7th grade, Geometry in 8th. The super mathy kids can test into the super advanced track where they skip 2 years ahead, combined 8/Algebra I in 6th, Geometry in 7th, Algebra II in 8th.
For advanced kids, this is a god send. After being bored to tears all through elementary school, they finally get to do some real math. Each year at least half the kids choose the advanced track. Many of whom really shouldn’t have and ended up struggling by 7th grade when they get to Algebra 1. Meanwhile, many of the super mathy kids are still bored with their 2 grade level skip.
Those who didn’t choose the advanced track end up taking Algebra I in 9th grade. The local high school’s Algebra 1 EOC passing rate for 9th graders is often <50%. All the ones who are semi-capable already took the test in 7th or 8th grade.
I often wondered what kind of jobs people could competently perform if they don’t at least pass Algebra I. Wouldn’t surprise me if many of these flunkies end up being elementary school teachers, considering how low the requirement is for Education majors. Almost every one of my kids’ elementary teachers started the year by telling the class math is her *least *favorite subject, then proceeded to teach the subject half-heartedly. And then we wonder why so many kids have trouble in math by middle school.
This agrees with with my experience too. I took a class in middle school that combined 7th and 8th grade math, but our textbook was an Algebra 1 textbook. And I had to take Algebra 1 again, the next year. Does anyone know why elementary and middle school math is so repetitive? And even with the constant repetition, people are still not ready for Algebra 1 in 8th grade, or even 9th grade?
She should get the old final exams for her college’s calculus 1 and 2 courses and try them to check her knowledge to see if she should retake or move on to a more advanced course.
@SlackerMomMD, whether she should retake calc or not will depend on her major as well. Calculus is used in pretty much all the engineering majors (as well as math, fin math, etc.)
It’s not really useful for CS (unless she takes some EE classes or some others that require calculus).