When you did Alex did he work at 4h Grade level at home while in 4th Grade? How long did you do this so they felt comfortable he could do the program? Did you generate Reports from Alex and present them to the school?
He completed the ALEKS 4th Grade level during July '09, the month before the start of school.
I didn't bother with any of the reports, other than to share a "for teachers" page with them describing the alignment with state curriculum. (Which I don't think was ever read.)
Because ALEKS allows the student to work in a largely self-directed fashion, I think it would be difficult for the student to take any test showing grade level competency until the course is essentially finished.
Our son's progress didn't follow the school's text book at all, as he was effectively tackling parts of multiple chapters at the same time.
Unless the school has some meaningful familiarity with ALEKS -- or is willing to do the research on its own -- convincing the school to permit in-class replacement would be a tough challenge.
If I had done this mid-year, I would have had DS complete the course on his own, after school, and then request that he be permitted to take the end-of-year test for the school to demonstrate mastery of their curriculum.
Then, if he tested high enough, I would request that he be allowed to take the next level in ALEKS as an in-class replacement.
Do not, however, allow him to take their test until you've personally reviewed their curriculum to make sure ALEKS covered everything. I found a handful of differences where he would have been tripped up by terminology. I also had him review some earlier math concepts that his school covered in 4th, but ALEKS didn't. (One example is that ALEKS doesn't discuss "outliers" [in reference to Mean v. Median] until 5th, while the school addressed the concept in 4th.)
In the end, though, requiring 30+ minutes/day from my son -- on top of regular school work -- would have been less than pleasurable for him, so taking this mid-year approach would not have been as easy as an over-the-summer effort.
