We're in a kind of unusual spot. Our local school districts have suddenly gotten very liberal with their willingness to subject accelerate in math. My dd12 is doing very well with a combo of having started school a bit early (we got her around a K cut that she missed by two weeks so she's young for grade) and subject accelerating in math (she's taking Algebra I this year in 7th grade). There are a number of other 7th graders taking Algebra I at her school as it is a very high performing school.
The assumption was that she'd take Geometry in 8th and then go into Algebra II in 9th, which will start about a month or so before her 14th bd. I'm sure that she'd do absolutely fine with that much acceleration. However, her school is now offering kids who are doing well in Algebra I in 7th the possibility to take both Geometry and Algebra II next year in 8th which would put that group into pre-calc in 9th.
I don't know how we ascertain whether that would be advisable for our particular kiddo. One of our other local middle schools started offering acceleration that they had not in the past a few years ago where they offered many incoming 6th graders who had low-advanced or above state achievement scores on math tests the option of taking 6th & 7th grade math concurrently in 6th and then going into Algebra I in 7th. Some of these kids hit a point where the acceleration was too much and are repeating Algebra I in 8th or needing to repeat a year of math later.
There really doesn't seem to be any assessment of who would be a good fit long-term for acceleration of this sort beyond current high achievement. For that reason, I'm not sure that I trust that it is a good idea to accelerate that much just b/c dd is doing well currently with the acceleration. I don't want her to hit a point (especially in high school) where she was accelerated more than she needed to be.
How do you figure this out?
