In my experience, students that are greatly accelerated (Algebra I in 6th grade or 7th grade or earlier) struggle because they are too far removed from those topics and forget many of the things needed to solve those problems on the SAT. Instead of spending time exploring math at a deeper level and understanding concepts, we tend to push them ahead with new standards to cover. This is very deceiving because we think students are getting ahead and know more, but at that young age, they simply learn more facts without conceptual understanding or developing the mathematical reasoning strategies needed for higher level math. In my opinion, both as an accelerated math student in school and through observation as a teacher working with many accelerated students, spending more time developing mathematical thought is extremely more important than pushing ahead through new text books.
Off-topic comment for this thread but relevant to the forum:
There may be students who have accelerated too much in math, leaving them with a weak foundation. But there are also gifted math students who need a lot of acceleration. I am concerned that some teachers and administrators use the logic above to oppose all acceleration. It is not true that all young students, when accelerated, "simply learn more facts without conceptual understanding or developing the mathematical reasoning strategies needed for higher level math".
