
SF responds to parents in algebra dispute - mbgaxyz
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-responds-to-parents-in-algebra-10415538.php
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tomohawk
I was ready for Algrebra in 6th grade, but we moved and I had to wait until
8th grade. It was boring repeating arithmetic for 2 additional years.

I'm glad I was able to get it in 8th grade, though, as I was able to get BC
Calc in high school. The engineering students in college who first saw
calculus in college didn't usually do very well.

In university, I did an informal poll of the foreign students I met over the
years I was there. Irrespective of major, they pretty much all said they got
to Algebra in 6th grade.

On the other hand, I don't really see the point of forcing everyone to take
math as early as possible or as advanced as possible. In our state, nurses
need to take and pass college Algebra, which is equivalent to Algebra II,
Trig, and some Analytical Geometry and Linear Algebra. This prevents a lot of
people from becoming nurses. The argument is that this teaches abstract
reasoning skills. Such a waste to prevent people from becoming nurses over a
skill they'll never use, and which nothing else they learn needs.

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protomyth
_Yet district officials have stood firmly behind a policy that keeps all
students together in math through middle school, eliminating the tracking of
students into classes based on their level of academic ability, which often
separates white, Asian and wealthy students from their low-income, Latino and
black peers._

 _To bypass the district’s policy, some public school parents have been paying
for outside algebra courses to prepare their children to take a placement test
that would allow them to enroll in geometry freshman year. But the courses are
expensive, and not everyone can afford them._

So, to "fix" a racial issue the district created an economic issue. These
people teach children and don't get logical outcomes of their actions.

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ec109685
In my school, it was Alegebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, AB Calculus.

The only benefit of Algebra in Middle School was that it set you up for BC
Calculus senior year.

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DrScump
No Trigonometry?

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ec109685
I don't think we had a special class for it.

