Math Acceleration

[Tina McIver]

I work for a small school district (4A high school). Our junior high has about 100 kids in each grade (7th/8th). We are doing some reorganizing for this fall and have had a lot of discussion about math grouping. As of now, the district is not wanting to group students AT ALL for math instruction. I am definitely opposed to this, but really need some help in finding out what everyone else out there is doing for math instruction. Please let me know how your students are grouped for math instruction (if they are). Tell me what your "selection" methods are, as well as what your school size is and where you are located. I would also like to know how your gifted services are delivered (pull-out, class within a class, etc.). Thanks so much for your help.

[Kevin_K]

The school my son attended for 4th to 6th grade scheduled math class simultaneously in the entire school. Each year kids were given math placement tests and placed in the appropriate level math class (independent of what grade they were in). There were more levels of math available than grades in the school—my son was placed in 7th grade math when he started in 4th grade, and the school was a K-6 school. This meant that all the teachers, even those with no home class, had to teach math. It worked out very well---much better than grouping kids by age.

[Tina McIver]

Was this a public or private school?

[Kevin_K]

This was at a private school with only 16 kids per grade. At his previous public school, he had been allowed to do math on his own with the Singapore Primary Math series (which we provided), but he got no in-school instruction in math at his level.

[Cathy Tombasco]

Each of the junior highs in our district has around 220 students/grade. The students take a test in 6th grade for math placement. They are then divided by ability into math 7, prealgebra and algebra 1 classes. We are talking about eliminating algebra 1 because there are not many kids who appear ready for it.

[Tina McIver]

What math series do you currently use? We have switched to Connected Math and I am being told because of the way it is structured, there is only the option for 7th grade math and 8th grade math. I am curious especially to find others who are using this series and how they are accelerating kids using it. Thanks.

[Nancy Bosch]

Our exceptional math 6th graders take PreAlg before school in 6th grade, then take Alg 1 as 7th graders and go to the high school for Honors Geometry in 8th. Other wise the track is like Cathy's school. All in all public school math instruction is a joke, many bright kids are held back for years---nobody seems to want to come up with alternatives.

[Michelle Barkemeyer]

I currently teach at a very small public school - about 20 kids per grade. I'm so thrilled this year that we will be changing our math sequence for the students. I had a small group of students last year (4 sixth graders and 1 fifth grader) who were accelerated through the 6th grade math and pre-algebra this last school year, so we had to evaluate some things. We historically have required all 7th graders to take pre-algebra and all 8th graders to take algebra. After much discussion, we've decided to split our 7th grade class into pre-algebra or 7th grade math. We use the Iowa Algebra Readiness Test as well as teacher input to make our decisions. Then our 8th graders will either take algebra or pre-algebra. This gives our struggling math students an extra year's practice with basic skill work before tossing them into pre-algebra. It is going to take some flexibility on everyone's part for the first year or two, but it looks promising. My small group will take algebra on their own this year and then go to the high school for geometry next year.
Our services are primarily pull-out once a week for a two-hour block, but I will be working more with the classroom teachers this year to help with challenging them daily.