Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Virginia eliminating accelerated math before 11th

In Search of Reality: Unraveling the Myths about Tracking, Ability Grouping, and the Gifted
(Ability Grouping and Acceleration) Ellen D. Fiedler; Richard E. Lange; Susan Winebrenner.
Roeper Review, Spring 2002 v24 i3 p108(4)
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2002 The Roeper School
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Myth #1: Tracking and ability grouping are the same thing.
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Myth #2: Ability grouping is elitist.
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Not all students have the ability or desire to participate on a varsity sports team, yet I have never heard any school official argue that singling out talented athletes for team membership to the exclusion of others is elitist. In fact, school districts and local community agencies go to great lengths applauding these athletes' efforts and supporting them in their development.
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Myth #3: Ability grouping inevitably discriminates against racial and ethnic minority students.
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Myth #4: Gifted students will make it on their own; grouping them by ability does not result in improved learning or achievement for them.
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Myth #5: Providing heterogeneously grouped cooperative learning experiences is most effective for serving all students, including the gifted.
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Myth #6: Assuring that there are some gifted students in all classrooms will provide positive role models for others and will automatically improve the classroom climate.
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Eliminating accelerated math courses for middle and high school students is simply a bad idea with serious consequences. For starters, Virginia will have far fewer students accepted into engineering programs of study at U.S. colleges. Thereafter, Virginia’s engineering universities will be faced with watering down admission requirements for its own state students. Ultimately, Virginia students who are accepted into in-state and out-of-state engineering programs will not be able to compete with students from other states.

Math classes are the backbone of a high school student’s body of work for those pursuing engineering. The normal sequence of classes offered toward high school graduation is Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2/Trigonometry, Pre-Calculus, and Calculus. Accelerated math students can handle Algebra 1 in 8th grade, which puts them on a trajectory to take full calculus (even AP Calculus) before graduating high school.