Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy If the schools won't accelerate, should you?

The public schools where we live do not have gifted programs and have little acceleration, although students can take AP Calculus in 11th grade. Our 12yo son, a middle child, is in 7th grade and is taking Algebra I in school and Algebra II at the Russian School of Math (RSM). He has scored in the 700s on the the math SAT. He wants to take precalculus at RSM over the summer.

The public schools will likely not deviate from the Algebra II/Geometry/Pre-calculus/Calculus sequence in grades 8-11. So I wonder what the benefit of accelerating him over the summer is. OTOH, we don't want to discourage him.

Personally, I see the benefit as your child receiving appropriately challenging math placement over the summer, and being among academic/intellectual peers... even though such appropriate challenge and placement with true peers cannot currently be secured during the school year.

IMO, a few months of the right "fit" is better than no experience of the right "fit." In the future, looking back on this experience may help him with other decision making.

pm'd you

If he is motivated he should probably take the precalculus (RSM). It will more than likely be a better course than the school would teach anyway. We are looking at some Stanford online math classes in the future.

We are kind of in the same boat but my ds 15 just finished honors pre-calc his freshman.

There are so many variables... quality of the teacher..etc

Studying CTY SET kids (SAT math >= 700) suggests that appropriate acceleration doesn't just get kids "to the same place, just sooner", but rather boosts kids onto a higher career trajectory -- more productive, more pre-eminent track -- for their entire careers. (For the kids studied, this was especially true for boys -- for girls in the earlier times, effects seemed to be moderated by the girls' tendency to veer into less mathematically based careers.)

"When Less Is More: Effects of Grade Skipping on Adult STEM Productivity Among Mathematically Precocious Adolescents", Park, Lubinski, & Benbow
https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Park-Lubinski-Benbow-2013.pdf

The study was looking at whole grade acceleration, comparing matched kids who did grade-skip vs. those who could have but didn't. I know that's not the situation and question you're asking about -- you're asking not about whole-grade acceleration but rather about a situation where an enriching/accelerating math summer may put your kid further out-of-sync with the school math curriculum. Nevertheless, I bring up this study as it suggests there can be significant lost opportunity resulting from holding mathematically gifted kids (back) "on age track".

I'm curious what his motivation for taking the class is. Does he have plan for going forward?

I feel your pain - we live with a system that offers no flexibility whatsoever within a given track, so we usually scramble to find challenge and enrichment in fields that aren’t mandatory subjects in school or at least not within his track. So far, that has been lots of computer science, robotics and Ancient Greek, of all things...and music and sports, outside of school, to keep him social and busy.

It’s hard if your child wants and needs more in precisely those mandatory subjects. But if the school will do what the school will do anyway, I see no reason not to enrol your child in whatever math class they are interested in and can handle. I assume your child is old enough to understand that there is no point in then complaining that math class in school is even more boring as a result - they’ll just have to suffer through the repetition, make sure they collect their As and don’t alienate the teacher on the way...

I do not want to go all Waldorf on you, but I’m wondering why you wouldn’t want to save up the accelerated class for extra stimulation during the school year, and use the summer vacation to make sure that your child gets lots and lots of outside time, exercise and maybe art or music or whatever might float his boat. I am assuming you live in Boston, so remember, winter is coming!

I just heard today that DS11 will have to start mandatory computer science next year in 7th grade. That somehow wasn’t on my radar since CS was strictly elective back when I was in school. I recall now that DS11 has frequently helped DH prepare the tests for DH’s computer science class that he teaches to 10th or 11th graders...that should have been a clue....and kind of predicts more boredom down the line LOL.

I glanced through the paper. It is an interesting read, but I *strongly* disagree with the conclusion. Many metrics that the authors used, for example, age to obtain PhD/MD/JD, to publish the first paper, total citation at a certain age, are not that meaningful when we consider the age bias. And frankly, grade-skipping is a self-selecting process. Kids do not skip a grade unless they are academically capable. The numbers do not tell all the stories.

I am saying this because I was a among a group of 200 kids who entered one particular college at 15 years old and younger in the 90's. Most of us got our BS/BA under 20. Not knowing what to do, we went on pursuing PhDs. We are all in our late 30s and early 40s now.

True, almost all of us have advanced degrees, many from prestigous universities. But only a few still work in science. Some of us are just not equipped with the other skills that are necessary to be successful in academia, where the success is evaluated in this paper.

Academic capability is one crucial factor of future success. But its importance should not be overblown.

Now, coming back to the original question, the answer is a definitive yes, provided that your son is interested and motivated.

Yes, accelerate. At a minimum, I would advocate to have your son contest the end of year exam for whatever courses he takes. Then, his schedule will, at least, be open to other subjects that aren’t redundant.

Our district has similar philosophies. I would be very careful, personally. If your kid can tolerate repeating the same class during the school year, which may be a possible outcome, then I see no downside. But I would consider it a possibility when deciding- I have seen it happen (though sometimes kids do this by choice to boost their GPA, but that’s a different story...). Our school had a pretty strict policy of not accepting outside coursework, and they refused to allow testing out. However, this seems to have been relaxed over the past couple years- depending on how one goes about it. If you can, and haven’t yet, I would speak with the math Dept head at the high school, or with the teacher who teaches the class he would enter after completing the summer class. They seemed to have much more reasonable ideas than the administrative people, who draw a line in the sand and seemed unwilling to consider any flexibility in interpretation. Another helpful thing is to track down a kid who has done it successfully and figure out who they approached and how. In districts like ours, this info can be hard to come by and people are not open about it, primarily because it’s against the written policies. But it does happen.

Thanks to everyone who replied. An alternative to his taking precalculus would be to study algebra in more depth using an AOPS course such Introduction to Algebra B or Intermediate Algebra or to take one of their courses on combinatorics or number theory.

Does your son participate in any math competitions or in a math circle, mathcounts, AMCs etc..? Does he have any desire to qualify for AIME.

AoPS number theory is a great course, as well as their AMC 10 and 12 classes.
The Problem Solving Series Vol. 1 and 2 are good books. He will recognize some type of problems and scratch his head on some.

If my son had to repeat a math course he would be a bear to get along with. Combine that with the reality he has some teacher coming up that are at best uninspiring.

We are in a similar boat with our daughter now 13 and about to complete 8th grade. The decision that we took was to basically ignore the B&M school stuff and concentrate on 'acceleration' aka moving at her pace using AoPS outside of school.

She also did the AoPS beginners Python class, Number theory and Combinatorics in addition to the standard (Pre-Alg, Alg I, Alg II) sequence to keep her stimulated and broaden the scope of her Maths education (and to slow her down).

She has finished the AoPS Algebra II class and is a good way through their Pre-Calculus (almost halfway). We will pause that class and resume it in the Autumn so she can enjoy her time at CTY unfettered.

She will take the High School Algebra II & Trig exams tomorrow and Friday AMs. Our aim is to have her attempt to resume B&M school maths with Pre-Calculus in her freshman year.

My wife and I feel that it is better to keep our daughter stimulated and learning how to learn than to have her stagnating doing the same thing over and over again for weeks in the regular classroom.

If your son is keen to do it then why not?

My tentative recommendation would be no, partly because I am not confident that RSM is particularly rigorous/deep and the fact that your DS is going into 8th with AP Calculus as the "next" course in the sequence. In our area, only high schoolers can get credit for AP Calculus. Of course, it doesn't mean you can't "take" the course, just that you can't get credited on your high school transcript. That is partly why I am glad that we held DS back so that he didn't take AP Calculus until 9th grade. Instead he studied number theory and combinatorics and lots of competition math. There is also the issue that there is nothing special/necessary about Precalculus - it covers (perhaps deeper) topics from Algebra 2 and Geo/Trig courses. I think if your DS wants to stay with the traditional course sequence, he would be better off taking AoPS Geometry and/or Intermediate Algebra (the third Algebra course). DS cruised through his school's PreCalculus and AP Calculus AB courses but found AoPS Intermediate Algebra challenging. It makes sense to follow with AoPS and DS did not mind "repeating" in that way; however, I think he would have probably pulled his hair out if he had to repeat the school's courses after studying it in a more rigorous outside setting. If your DS has any interest, he should consider the combinatorics and number theory courses - there is a beginning and an advance one available through AoPS. DS is taking the advanced combinatorics course but he self-studied the beginning one a few years ago. Of course, there are also competition math and corresponding courses through AoPS and other providers as well.

I'm contemplating having my son take an AoPS course at a new campus that is opening up around here, but I'm a little nervous that their courses are supposed to last a whole school year. I can't imagine it would take my son a *whole year* to learn a year of math. The online courses are a lot shorter. Does anyone have experience with the in-person classes? Is it worth all the extra money and time?

DD13 is not a fan of math, or we would go back to AoPS. We tried to get our school to allow DD13 to take the high school Biology class over the summer so she could take the AP Biology this Fall. The school came up with all kinds of reasons for her not to take it then finally stated there was no room for her in the AP class. They recommended that maybe she could take a coding class for fun over the summer, which we are going to do, but DD is feeling defeated (as am I). She wanted to hurry through her basics because they are so boring. DD14 does like math, and she decided to do a math class over the summer for fun.

+1 madeinuk

Have they told you this or is it an assumption? I’d certainly find out for sure before making a decision.

My DD13 is 2 grades advanced and still getting 100% on everything. But rather than even more acceleration, we decided on enrichment. She’s taken Number Theory, Game Theory, Combinatorics, etc. through AoPS, CTY, and others. We also found a local ARML team where she’s covering advanced topics with college grad student teachers, and alongside a member of the US math olympic team. Building a broader base and skill set, rather than running through the curriculum, is preferable, IMHO.

Search for an article titled “The Calculs Trap”, which explains this approach very well.

It's based on experiences with my older son. He has been more mathematically precocious than his younger brother, and he is taking precalculus in 10th grade and scheduled to take calculus in 11th grade next year. He has taken calculus at RSM this year and took the AP Calculus BC exam. If he finds out this summer that he got a 5 on the BC Calculus exam, they will move him to online classes in differential equations, multivariable calculus, or linear algebra. So I guess acceleration is possible based on a standardized test score.

When I was in junior high school I took math classes at the high school during first period as part of the gifted program. Few Massachusetts public schools have gifted programs, and block scheduling means that it is impossible to take one class at the high school and the other classes at the middle school, since one school could have a 6-day schedule and the other school a 7-day schedule.

If you wanted to investigate advancing your younger DS's formal math placement, I would consider finding out if the school has placement tests for students who want to place into honors classes, and then asking if he can take them to place into the next level of math. E.g., if he exceeds the cut score typically used for placement into honors precalculus, then place him into precalc as a ninth-grader. They seem open to acceleration based on standardized test scores that they trust and understand. District placement tests would fall into the same category.

Our sentiments exactly.