[proxy_user]

When I was going to school in the 60s, only the brighter students were given algebra in the 8th grade. Everyone else got it in the 9th.

[wrcase]

Same with me in the early 70s. You had to qualify to take 8th grade algebra with grades and an exam.

[Red Badger]

We got it in the 7th.............

[wrcase]

Same with me in the early 70s. You had to qualify to take 8th grade algebra with grades and an exam.

[muawiyah]

Depended entirely on where you lived. We had it available in 7th grade ~ with most taking it in 8th grade ~ and laggards getting tagged with it in 9-12 until they could graduate.

(BTW, moved from Indiana to Virginia in the 1970s)

Southern school systems like those in Virginia think chilluns are entirely too immature to handle algebra until 9th grade. On the other hand they require county, state and us history ~ and for kids in Northern Virginia that's the same course taken three times ~ makes for some really great docents and tourguides in the DC area BTW.

Fortunately they've given up on handwriting and moved boldly into computer keyboards.

[angry elephant]

When I was in school no one got it until 9th grade. And then only those who were college bound.

When I got to the University of Washington, there were scads of young women who were in what we called Bonehead math. They were struggling with the Math 105 that was required.

I hosted free math seminars in my co-ed dorm every week. And these were young middle-class white women who had not gotten basic skills.