Do kids who aren't gifted really get accelerated that often?? I would think the majority of accelerated kids would be gifted, so if he's talking about some accelerated minority, he should make that clear, and if he's talking about gifted kids then he's nuts.
I don't have statistics, but
this page of the public school system thread has information about gifted programs and non-gifted kids.
Anecdotally, my eldest's school put about a third of his class into geometry in 8th grade. It was definitely a watered-down course. But then, it was following a watered-down but state-approved textbook, so it wasn't necessarily that acceleration was the cause of making it too easy.
At the school my other two attend, finishing algebra in the 8th grade is considered to be the regular track and finishing geometry at the same time is the accelerated track. I know that a fair number of kids (e.g. way more than 2% of the class) take geometry. My own DD's 5th grade class has 7 out of 12 kids in a very accelerated group (they're doing pre-algebra mixed with 5th grade math). I'm not really sure what to think about that. More than half of a class is a lot of kids doing algebra 2 way ahead of schedule.
When I was in school, algebra in 8th grade was considered accelerated, while taking it in 9th grade was above average. Taking it in 10th grade and going through algebra 2 was more "regular."
Actually, I do have some statistics. Entire states have pushed for algebra-for-all in 8th grade (e.g. Minnesota and California, but it's been abandoned here).
Here's an piece about this trend. Also,
here's a paper about algebra for all in 8th grade in a district in North Carolina. It didn't work out so well there.
So, yes, there are a lot of students being accelerated when they shouldn't be accelerated. It's possible that Wu was referring to this group and wasn't thinking about gifties. In that case, he was right, but he was still wrong to paint everyone with the same brush.
I don't know when non-US students take algebra and geometry. I know that some countries teach them at the same time, but I don't know when.
