Anyone Have An 8th Grader in Accel Math Wondering About Which "Math Path" To Take in H.S.? (private school, pharmacists)

[RainyRainyDay]

Surprising as it may seem, I agree that the avoidance-of-basics approach to math (and other disciplines) has been a big problem in public education in recent decades. In my personal experience, this problem is much worse in British Columbia (Canada's westernmost province) than Georgia. This is likely because BC is a very "liberal progressive" jurisdiction and Georgia ... not so much.

I suspect the poor performance of Georgia schools overall has more to do with rural/urban funding disparities, poverty and other social problems than the school curricula. Public school students in metro Atlanta's more prosperous areas do just fine on national tests.

I'm a believer in public education, unlike perhaps some of you and certainly unlike our state legislators who seem intent on starving public schools, apparently in hope of Georgia becoming a paradise of private education. I think this is every bit as crazy as the notion of a socialist paradise.

The new Georgia math curriculum is based on the Japanese model, for heaven's sake. The Japanese are hardly noted for lack of rigor or adventurous teaching methods, are they? I am suspicious that criticisms like lastminutemom's may be based more on what people expect to find (more of the same-old liberal-progressive fluff and inattention to basics) rather than what's actually in the new curriculum.

In my daughter's 8th grade Accelerated Math I class, despite the pressure to get through a year-and-a-half's worth of high school level math, the teacher administers a timed math-fact drill every Friday and there is a wall chart of students' performance and a reward system for success in the timed tests. This public school teacher knows that you can't do algebra if you can't do arithmetic fast and with perfect accuracy. I don't believe a private school would be doing it better.

[Mattie]

Fortunately, my son is already a sophomore in high school, so the new rules don't affect him, but I would like to point out that it's ok NOT to overextend your kids. My son was recommended for AP World History this year, but before I said yes, I asked him if he had a passion for it, since it would involve a lot of work. As it turns out, history is his least favorite subject, so I told him to skip the AP. Next year he's taking 4 AP classes, all in science and math, which he loves. The accelerated math, at least in our school, requires a great deal of homework. I don't see the point of pushing a child who may not be up to the challenge, especially if it is at the expense of other subjects that they may enjoy more.

[oldhousegirl]

Funny, when we first came to Ga, I thought the Accelerated Math track was going to be taught in an innovative way. Math is learned by practice. There is minimal practice, and more rushing on to the next topic. Hence, Accelerated Math. We do supplement at home.

The textbooks my son has are cumbersome and confusing, with minimal example problems. I understand problem solving, and the push to encourage the kids in that area,
but I question the publishers and curriculum developers. It's almost as if we will try anything and that is negatively impacting our kids.

I have a science background, and had to look twice at some of the 8th grade math material to see just what it was they were looking for.

[netdragon]

What I was talking about as fluff was when I saw my younger siblings coming home with logic puzzles and basic geometry in elementary school when they couldn't even tell me what 8x9 is. Also, what is a 7th grader going to use basics of college math material like counting problems (probability), basic graph theory respun as something else? Not only do the kids not really get the big picture, but they have to be mired in the process of solving the problem because they don't have enough background to understand the theory. By 3rd grade, they should know the multiplication tables. By 5th grade students should be able to do complex arithmetic and simple algebra. Then, if they get passed that stuff, then they should move onto algebra and maybe start learning a little extra theory on the side. I looked through their new books in middle school and personally I would have ripped out about half of it because it was garbage. Additionally, they were being too indoctrinated on the "process" of how to solve a problem a certain way (straight out of the book) and would get problems wrong if they solved them their own way, even if it was right and their method was sound.

Another thing... Are schools still wasting elementary students' time with cursive?

[jforeman]

As someone who has both a BS and an MS in mathematics, I would urge you to put your child in the advanced class. I believe that students are like goldfish and with the appropriate amount of personal attention (this could mean you spending the sufficient time to learn the material and help your child), any student can grow to the size of their container.

[oldhousegirl]

Thanks for sharing that jforeman.

[lastminutemom]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

The new Georgia math curriculum is based on the Japanese model, for heaven's sake. The Japanese are hardly noted for lack of rigor or adventurous teaching methods, are they? I am suspicious that criticisms like lastminutemom's may be based more on what people expect to find (more of the same-old liberal-progressive fluff and inattention to basics) rather than what's actually in the new curriculum.

In my daughter's 8th grade Accelerated Math I class, despite the pressure to get through a year-and-a-half's worth of high school level math, the teacher administers a timed math-fact drill every Friday and there is a wall chart of students' performance and a reward system for success in the timed tests. This public school teacher knows that you can't do algebra if you can't do arithmetic fast and with perfect accuracy. I don't believe a private school would be doing it better.

Rainy,

In Japan, not only do they not care if every child masters things, they don't educate every child. Japan is one of the most homogeneous populations in the world. Georgia isn't. Overall, Japanese parents are passionate about education and view it as shameful to the family if a child isn't successful. They track children in Japan, parents don't get to decide.

In Japan, teaching is considered a honorable and highly desireable career. There is no shortage of math and science teachers there.

In Japan, they would have never rolled out a new curriculum without adequate funding for training and textbooks. They would have had a plan to phase it in slowly so no one or two grades took a body blow with it. Additionally, I think, there would be a independent was to access if it is working.

The 8th grade CRCT will be developed by testing experts hired by the state. The cut score (the score that indicates how many questions have to be answered correctly) will be set by Kathy Cox. More students will certainly fail this test, which will lead her to say -- look the curriculum is more rigorous and pat herself on the back (I can see the press conference already). However, no one will know what impact the new curriculum is having on the best and the brightest, the ones who should be our future mathmaticians and scientists.

Your child is fortunate to have a great math teacher who gets it. I am certain that across the state, many children do. Your child will be fine in either course.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by netdragon

Another thing... Are schools still wasting elementary students' time with cursive?

In my experience (one child, Cobb county), no.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by lastminutemom

Your child is fortunate to have a great math teacher who gets it. I am certain that across the state, many children do. Your child will be fine in either course.

LMM, thanks for the thoughtful post about Japan/Georgia differences, etc.

Regarding the above quote, thanks for the affirmation. Perhaps I should clarify, though, that I'm not the OP, who is actively considering which course would be best for her son.

[netdragon]

What's interesting about math is that every year, I thought the older stuff was a joke. I thought algebra and trig was easy when I took calculus. When I was taking advanced differential equations, I thought Calc I and II was easy. Then when I took some engineering courses, I had to practically solve engineering problems by creating and solving 2nd order differential equations, double integrals and partial differential equations, which was harder than just learning them. I think a big part of that is how math is cumulative, so stuff you learn on a theoretical basis one year you are forced to use on a practical basis on the next, so you have to learn it better. After the torture of differential equations, though, I really am glad as a computer science, computer systems major that I didn't have to go any deeper on that path and didn't need to go any further into calculus (I really don't know what comes next and probably don't want to know) since I'm not a math major

It can look intimidating at times, but it's really just a matter of staring at the darned things and reading the notes until it clicks. As long as it isn't saved until a cram session, it's usually all good

Originally Posted by Mattie

Next year he's taking 4 AP classes, all in science and math, which he loves.

That's great. The one mistake I made was not taking enough AP classes when they aren't much harder than the alternative and save you money at schools that accept them (which are most). I let the school officials scare me into not taking more (I only took 2) and my student loans would probably be a bit lower at this point if I hadn't listened. Our school had both "high" and AP classes and they were essentially the same thing, and they encouraged students to take the high class before the AP class which really covered the same material, just with college-like teaching methods. In hindsight, it seems pretty stupid not to get college credit for learning the same material. I've found out our school doesn't do it like that anymore, since most of the high courses with a redundant AP course were replaced with AP.

Note that a lot of schools have caps on the number of AP credits they accept.