American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)
My sister sent my niece to one, as even her &#x27;private&#x27; middle school in Newton, MA, was just not strong enough. She did sign up my niece in every summer class she could, without overloading her. It was always my nieces&#x27; choice, and half the time she choose arts and half science.  Now, my niece is able to do  college entry level data science classes (she is about to become a Junior in HighSchool), and she actually likes it a lot.<p>American schools are too soft on science in general.  I did grades 1-11 in Albania and my senior year of HighSchool in the US. Some of my schooling in Albania was done under communism, and some after communism fell in the 90s.<p>The Albanian school was brutal in teaching science. Biology started at 5th grade, pre-Algebra at 5, and full blown Algebra at 6, physics at 6, and Chemistry at 7.  Then in highschool you did the same, but more advanced. There was no choice at all, you had to do them all. The only choice in HS was a second foreign language.  The whole idea was that you have to know all the basics of ALL sciences, so in college you know what to choose and pursue. If you never tried, you will have no clue if you liked something or not. (also basic music knowledge, sheet reading, and arts was a requirement as well).<p>When I came to the US, I was flabergasted how behind most of the kids were in science.  I took AP physics, and it became boring as it was things I had done in 8th grade.  I got 800.&#x2F;800 on the SAT 2, physics.<p>The math part, I took AP calc, and it was advanced enough, especially the part B to challenge me.  But this was clearly an elective that only about 30 students took it, while back home it was a requirement for all.<p>Unfortunately, the current movement on dumbing down math and science in the name of &#x27;equity&#x27; is a step behind and very dispiriting. It is bound to hurt poorer but smart kids, that can&#x27;t afford private tutoring and have to rely only on public schools. Extreme progressive Liberals are killing science and progress in this country, and are becoming actually regressive and backwards.<p>P.s. The only advantage of American teaching on science was that it relies more on experiments to teach concepts, while the Albanian one had no equipment, or lacked the basics of it.  Heck, in the 90s we didn&#x27;t even have glass on the windows and had to freeze all winter.  Also basic electricity was lacking half of the winter.<p>Ps2. Most Americans have it good (condition wise), they just don&#x27;t know it<p>Ps3. This is a good video how schooling was back then (in 88). Notice how the kids are wearing jackets inside, as there was no heating
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