Thank you, all of you, for your responses. It's been crazy-making to watch all of this unfold, and I was afraid after my post that it was starting to show.
From what I understand, he's learning a compacted 8th grade math (prealgebra) along with High School Math 1. High School Math is an integrated math course that combines both algebra and geometry rather than separate the two. North Carolina is one of three states that went in that direction (West Virgina and Utah being the other two). It's supposedly more aligned with Common Core and it makes more sense to not separate the disciplines.
I'm not convinced NC should be following in the footsteps of those two states when it comes to math. In fact, I don't understand why we're not looking more closely at Mass or Vermont, but then there are a lot of things that I don't understand about recent education decisions.
It would be wonderful if it's a course that is more effective at teaching higher math. But if in the lower grades math is poorly taught, how does the system expect kids to be strong in higher math? Not to mention the county and the state keep CHANGING the program. One year, they do it this way, the next year they throw out the whole curriculum and try another. This has happened at least three times so far.
I'm figuring out that DS12 is not really learning just two years of math in 1, he's learning probably at least 4. One because of his skip, but the other because of his less than stellar math education in 5th.
Bah.
I have asked my DH to hunt for a good, qualified tutor.
Thanks again, for your advice and support.
