I was just asking a friend this exact same question. We are in the same boat (our son is 8/2nd grade as well). Her advice was to take a look at the curriculum (sometimes pre-algebra in one place is harder than algebra in another place). Our son wants to do algebra as he hates repetition but I see value in it (to some extent). I think we will wait till fall to figure things out (will see what sort of MAP growth he has over the summer and also because I am tapped out with schools right now smile!