algebra in 8th

I first got going with all this math folderol when I discovered, in the pages of Wayne Wickelgren's Math Coach, that algebra-in-8th-grade is standard in Europe and Asia. That was a revelation. I had thought algebra-in-9th-grade was the natural order of things, if I thought about it at all. Which I didn't.

I had no idea algebra-in-8th meant no-calculus-in-9th, a fact my district did not call to my attention when they tracked C. into "Phase 3" math back in the 3rd grade.

Fortunately, I figured it out for myself in June 2004.

Here we are, 4 years later, and C. is completing algebra in 8th grade, many thanks to all you ktm regulars. (How do kids who don't have blog collectives helping them with homework do it?)

Meanwhile, the rest of the country is waking up to the fact that American kids are on the slow-track algebra-wise, thanks in part to the National Mathematics Advisory Panel report, which states bluntly that: More students should be prepared for and offered an authentic algebra course at Grade 8.

Apparently, there are school districts out there taking this injunction seriously:

The notion that students can master high school algebra before high school is relatively new, said Francis "Skip" Fennell, an education professor at McDaniel College in Westminster, Md., who is past president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The share of students completing the course in middle school nationwide has gone from next to nothing a generation ago to about 25 percent in the late 1990s to about 40 percent today.^*

In my district (per pupil funding $25,000), the figure stands at approximately 30%, and it would be far lower if the district had its way. When C. was in 5th grade, the middle school succeeded in whittling enrollment down from the approximately 35% who were taking it at that time to today's 30%. The next fall, when C. entered 6th grade, the middle school principal told Ed and me he hoped to get rid of the accelerated course altogether; last year the new middle school principal tried to scuttle it but failed.

The district was successful in slowing the progress of kids in grades K-5. Math Trailblazers came in and acceleration went out. Gifted children were particularly hard hit. The accelerated track was gone and the regular track was far slower than it had been. Trailblazers teaches many topics a full year later than they had been taught prior to the Trailblazers era.

If this WAPO story is accurate, affluent American kids are "thriving" in the international track, while poor and minority students are having a harder time of it. Somebody should talk to KIPP, where 80% of 8th graders pass Regents Math A.

I read a story like this and feel as if I'm living in a bubble. Elsewhere in the country, at least some school districts are working to move teachers and students onto the international track. Here, with per pupil spending rising to $25,000 and median household income somewhere in the neighborhood of $100K, putting students on par with their peers in Europe and Asia isn't even a topic for discussion.

Instead, it's the middle school model; it's character education; it's Project Lead the Way.


^* How many of these courses are authentic algebra, it's hard to know.