ColinsMum,
I like your opinion
DS had a really bad math teacher last year, and that's why we ended up pulling him out of that math class and worked with him independently. He was really eager to learn 'real math stuff' (in his own words) last year from this teacher that supposedly had experience teaching middle school math. Instead, he had to go through drill after drill of multiplication facts. The teacher thought that his best math student was the one who could finished the drill the fastest.
Yesterday I printed out the Pre-algebra 1 & 2 post-tests from AoPS website. We'll see how he does in both. I agree with what you said that it doesn't matter which class he's in as long as he's able to learn 'new things'. In his case, it may very well be more problem solving using the skills that he had already learned last year.
DS wanted to be in Algebra 1 class with another math specialist that had worked with him in the last 2 months of last school year. Unfortunately, the scheduling may not work. He will have to give up science accommodation to be in that math class.
