Well, high schools have a lot of pressures to cover a certain amount of material in a certain limited amount of time. Lots of people repeat algebra, and it isn’t the end of the world. Perhaps an extra year with repeated presentation of the material, more maturity, and continued tutoring, migh help him really learn the material. Do keep up with the tutoring! Grade 10 marks are usually not even considered in college applications, so this is again not the end of the world.
You would NOT be doing any kid a favour by pushing him ahead in algebra before he understands it.
If his school has any standards, you are just setting him up for failure in the next class in Grades 11 or 12 where the marks are more important to colleges.
If the school allows kids to be just pushed through, then they fail the college math place ment exam en masse and become the poor souls I tried to teach — people who have failed math for years and years and have learned nothing but to hate and avoid the subject; the success rate in these developmental classes is around 40% per semester, about 5% actually completing a three-semester sequence and graduating.
Re: reply about algebra, system made it new topic
Developmental ed conference? They wouldn’t have me. They’d throw me out the door. I have this unfortunate habit of being honest.
The last college developmental class I taught, the head of the developmental math department was sending out memos and berating instructors in person because of the very low pass rates; of course this came after he and his cronies ran these same students through a summer cram session to help them get higher marks on the placement tests so they could “pass” levels they didn’t actually know … you’d think a person who supposedly has a math degree would know a bit more about logic, wouldn’t you?
Re: reply about algebra, system made it new topic
Well, what was his name… hopefully he’s not the keyote speaker or anything, but I doubt it! They wouldn’t throw you out, I don’t think (but I’ll let you kow how it goes…)
We did have a good time rolling our eyes at a big shot Community College conference speaker, who was clearly out of touch with the nature and needs of *our* students. (Somehow, everybody was an eager, able and willing learner and all we had to do was reframe our thinking — Dilbert would have loved it.)
I’m grateful that our Math department head is more of the You Prove You KNow It, TUrkey, type. Granted, there are students he has *not* given permission to “reassess” that I would have (with his approval only, if you didn’t pass the class you can try to just take the test again and move along that way). But unlike your “friend,” he feels accountable for students being able to do the stuff they are supposed to have learned.
We don’t have a special “developmental math” deparment, though — that’s one of the things they discuss at conferences, and research has determined that when you separate things too much, students don’t make the transition from “developmental” to “college” — in part, to be sure, of people like your dept. head who care only about having numbers look better so they can look better.
Sorta like coaching a team. The Orioles were good when they had a good farm team and worked on developing players; when they started trying to buy instant stars … well, they couldn’t compete with the Yankees in that department.
A hidden asset is our athletic department — our teams are very good, and (mirabile dictu) the coaches care about the academics, too. They make *sure* their more “high risk” kiddos are getting help to *learn* the stuff.
Amen :-)
Hey, you woulnd’t by any chance be thinking of going to the conference on developmental ed. in St. Louis this spring? (It’s ridiculously expensive and quite a trip — but the college is getting our “developmental ed” unit there).