interim report

Just got C's interim report -- doing "B" level work in math!

He started the year with a B, mostly because he already knew the material from the year before and from work over the summer.

Then I dropped the ball and he went down to a C 2nd quarter, a C+ in the third. Those Cs would have been Ds if Ms. K hadn't given lots of credit for homework.

Now he's up to a B and heading towards an A and it's easy. He's out sick again today, so in a little while I'm going to be teaching him FOIL. He'll pick it up quickly.

Pretty cool.

These two years in the middle school have been a marathon. Two winters in a row I've had Ed bugging me about what a bad idea all of this was, and I can't say I disagreed. Of course when push came to shove Ed wasn't willing to move him down to Phase 3 and neither was I, but it's cost me thousands in lost work time and possibly a functioning thyroid gland to boot; plus I'm still going to have to figure out what the gaps are in his knowledge and fill those.

Why did we hang in there. Maybe 6 parts sheer stubborness and 6 parts refusal to have C. learn massively less math than he would have if we'd been able to shell out $26,000 for private school. He's got the ability to learn algebra in 8th grade, so he's going to learn algebra in 8th grade.

He's learning it now, in 7th, and he started learning it in 6th, thanks to the IMS math spiral. Teach 'em algebra in 6th grade, teach 'em algebra again in 7th (and tell them "you saw it last year" when they flunk the test), teach 'em algebra again in 8th.

If the district cared about students mastering math they'd start gradually accelerating all of the kids in 4th grade (or earlier), instead of cramming everything into 6th, a difficult year under any circumstances.

But no.

The "accelerated" course has been designed to put maximum pressure on the child; it's make or break. A killer course. It's always been that way. In the old days the middle school routinely washed 20 kids out of the course between the 6th and the 8th grades. Lots of tears and distress and parents telling their friends the toll on their child wasn't worth it; not too many kids learning algebra in the 8th grade.

I guess that's what you call administrative progressivism.