Thank you all your viewpoints were all very interesting and "educational" wink.

I haven't had time to go through all the links but what I've read on here has helped me understand what is going on.

Regarding puffin's post about ability grouping… there has been a trend at some of the private schools in our area to do "flipped" classrooms… the kids watch a presentation by the teacher explaining what they are teaching them for homework, then students work the problems in the classroom with their groups and the teacher. So they learn the basic idea the night before then practice by doing problems in the classroom.