My son just started his Freshmen year there as a math major. It seems like a really special school. The campus is drop dead gorgeous with 70 degree temperatures year round. The students get priority registration, no credit cap, can drop any class until the last minute etc. The professors email you back within minutes. Everyone there is happy and friendly. The dorm is steps from the bluffs of the pacific ocean. He starts his first actual class tomorrow.

Hi Quark, I haven't posted in a million years because of juggling full time work and all this stress, but your post really resonated with me and I just wanted to chime in and offer hugs and support. This year was nuts. I am so worn out. Am I remembering right that your child is the mathy one? My son's ECs were fairly minimal but the UCs apparently know about things like Mathcamp and he did really well with UC acceptances (he got in to every one that he applied to). I think they are looking at quality over quantity. I was actually shocked he did so much better with UCs than private schools as my son is the most out of the box kid I have ever met and I really thought that this would be a barrier to the state schools. Nevertheless it has been a super stressful year with a ton of rejection and general stress. All you really need is one good school to go to. I reminded my son of this before he applied, and while he was applying and again when the decisions were coming out. Just one. The others really don't matter. (I think I was reminding myself of this simultaneously). Hang in there.

I actually worked for CAVA teaching math. You are absolutely correct. The problem here is not the curriculum (which is horrible for sure) but that over half of the students do not do work every day. They let kids stay in the program who do the bare minimum... 1 minute of school a day! This is a way that the school can collect ADA money for attendance. I had a student put in my Homeroom one year who had not passed any classes for two years (including homeroom). Then the teachers spend 75 percent of their time chasing down kids who are not doing any work whatsoever. It was very frustrating not having time to spend with families who were there to learn. I am with a different online charter and it's a world of difference. I feel like a real teacher again. k12 is not very good at running charter schools but the people in charge of CAVA are the worst managers in any school I have ever worked at. This past year over 200 teachers quit mid year (the number is probably more like 250 now). Teachers are leaving in droves and the school is in chaos. The big problem with CAVA is that the strings are pulled by k12. I am not a huge fan of k12 curriculum but I see how some people like it for elementary. It's not terrible. However that corporation has no idea how to run a school or how to manage teachers. The amount of nepotism involved in the leadership is beyond the pale. It's so corrupt. I had some really nice families too. I hated leaving them but the management of CAVA is so bad. It needs to be replaced. Online schools have so much potential. Any class with a teacher has a certain amount of structure, but I know that with my own homeschooled kids an occasional teacher can be wonderful. I do get why people don't want rigidity. I steered clear of EPGY for just that reason. While the curriculum seemed way cool and demanding it seemed like it was just too "inside the box" for my fiercely independent learners. Still, there are many kids who don't mind a little bit of structure and there is no reason why we can't have excellent public online schools to meet the needs of these kids. Problem is that the people behind "school choice" are exactly the same people who have a monopoly on online schools. It's not really a choice when the same corporation owns 80% of the online schools in the US (I totally made that number up by the way...so don't quote me).

Interestingly enough 2e child # 1 had all sorts of visual problems but 2e child # 2 seems to be a completely (well not exactly completely) different animal. She seems to be more of a typical visual spacial child with auditory processing problems that make her seem like she has attention issues (I don't believe she does). Anyone know what you can do to help a dyslexic child with auditory processing issues. I am totally having to switch gears here since my #1 had almost a perfect auditory memory so I could just throw a ton of teaching company lectures at him and he was good to go. I'd like two things #1 to figure out some really awesome thing that plays to her strengths. And some sneaky little thing that I can slip in there to help her get better at listening. Any ideas?

Turns out you were absolutely right. It was an aural reading test. Still waiting to see the report in writing. Sounds like its going to be interesting. She is very much like her brother but tends towards auditory processing problems where his were more visual processing. Love those creative 2e dyslexics they keep you on the ball.

I'll have to get the specifics. I haven't had the official meeting She is 10. That could be it. She reads ok loud but here's the weird thing when she reads silently to herself and we talk about books she really seems to know what she is doing. I am wondering if she was overthinking the questions. I'll have to get all the specifics and come back when i know more.

I just had my daughter evaluated and I am a little stumped with the results. Can anyone here help me figure out what is going on? In short she has been through 10 levels of Barton and has a VIQ of 140. She reads well and from what I can tell understands what she is reading even with fairly complicated texts (high school level). Her reading comprehension tested at the 2nd grade level. So I am a little perplexed at what is going on. Is this maybe an attention issue? Should I request any more tests? The ed psych confirms that this is dyslexia like my oldest, but I am having trouble seeing how she can have such low reading comprehension scores when she seemingly reads so well. Also one more follow up...what do I do to help her at this point? Thanks so much for your help!

My son is going to his third summer at Math Camp. He is totally phobic of competitions (in general). Like Kathy says all the competitions are optional and if you do elect to participate they have different designations (can't remember the exact names...hard core and mellow....something like that). I believe last year my son actually participated in one of the competitive games, very unlike him but indicative of how easy going and flexible the camp is. The emphasis is on real math and lots of awesome math geek fun. Math Camp Rules! I cannot sing it's praises enough.

Thanks so much Kathy. You are the best. I do not know what I would do without you. :001_smile:

Are there any options this late in the game? What would be my best bet?

https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/takingtheexam/registering-for-exams You email them in January and they put you in touch with a local AP coordinator. They you contact them to see if they offer the test you need. I would ask even if they don't offer it. Why not? Worse case they can't do it and you have to find another location. They school my son tested at was very friendly and accommmodating.

She is absolutely amazing!

Me too! :D

With thousands of little stay at home mommy school girl crushes. We could make trading cards or something. Or maybe dolls. Like the Charlies angles dolls. Instead of the hideaway house we could have maybe a math competition. Maybe I need to get out more....

I am not online much (summer) but I just had a chance to watch lesson 5. Glad to see this course is getting better.

My son really enjoyed the EPGY number theory class. They used the Stark book but they also have lectures and an interactive computer thing (really old) that walks you through the material. It was good. I don't know how this would correlate with competition math. http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/M152/

Ooh, this looks good.

http://math.buffalostate.edu/~giambrtm/MAT501/Book%200-Chapter%202%20%20(Integers)/pg%201-85.pdf Oops, here's Chapter 2...

Oh by the way if you want to see the first chapter it's here online. http://math.buffalostate.edu/~giambrtm/MAT501/Chp1/Book0CHp1pg1-57.pdf And Chapter 2 as well. http://math.buffalostate.edu/~giambrtm/MAT501/Chp1/Book0CHp1pg1-57.pdf

Yes. When I tried the free trial of the online program they had a few bugs. You might try it on a different operating system (no pun intended). I know. It is very expensive. Glad to hear people are using it. Yes, the solutions. I wonder if I will hit a wall with not having a solution manual. I did with my son but I made the critical error of letting him read on his own, thinking that I could just glance in and check his work. I was able to do this through book 1 and then not so much. I just gave up. Still in spite of my lack of teaching he got quite a bit out of the books. I plan to stay with DD if she works through these books both for her and for my own enjoyment. It's quite unique. Anyhow AOPS is way better as far as providing an affordable product that is usable by people. Another huge contrast between the two. I mean EM is inspired and awesome and almost completely useless. Very much like most mathematics :P AOPS on the other hand is complete. I mean you get a whole years worth of curriculum that can be used implemented and understood for 50 or so dollars. With EM you can get the curriculum for that same amount of money but then you have to take it home and kind of decipher it. But it's still kind of fun, like getting the Rosetta Stone or trying to read the bible in Greek or something. Actually it's probably not even that hard...yet... What is super interesting for me is that my very twice exceptional dyslexic type daughter is hanging in just fine with this curriculum. It has cleared up any weird confusion she had about negatives. (She was getting the rules mixed up but now she really gets them solidly). It's like the sequence just works for her. When she did chapter 1 her times tables were kind of wobbly but she just really wanted to keep up so she really worked to do all of the modular arithmetic mod 7 or mod 29 or whatever. I don't think she would have been nearly as motivated by a page of hard arithmetic. I have tentatively planned on starting her with AOPS pre A in the fall. But I might work through several of these chapters first. They are really quite fun.

I have been really getting into the "Elements of Mathematics" curriculum lately. When my son was little, my daughter was an infant and I had limited time. I just let him read through the books and do the exercises on his own. He seemed to be getting quite a bit out of it and it was really just a supplement for the other math that I am doing. Now I am on my second child and I have more of a handle on the homeschooling twice exceptional dyslexic student thing so I am less overwhelmed. I have had more time to sit with my daughter and work through the books. I find this curriculum to be completely inspired and unlike anything else I have ever seen. I know they have a computer based version of this, not sure how well this is going for kids. I would expect it would need a teacher and one who is familiar with mathematics. Anyhow I was musing about this curriculum and how it is completely different from anything else and the relative value of teaching math for mathematicians at the elementary level and it reminded me of CSMP (slightly less advanced but equally abstract and esoteric math curriculum from the..70s? I think.) Anyhow I went to look for it and it was gone. I hope this is not permanent. A part of me just loves the little string games and mini computers. I hope that it is only temporarily down. CSMP didn't succeed because teachers couldn't figure out how to teach it. Though I just love some of the cute little ideas in this curriculum, I don't think that it really was the last best hope for mathematics. Still, it didn't seem like rocket science to me. As a matter of fact one of the reasons I never used it with my own kids was that it moved so...S...L...O...W...L...Y. Maybe they wrote it to move so slowly in an effort to make it accessible to elementary teachers. It didn't seem to work, no one could figure out how to use it. And I think, more importantly, no one could figure out why they were supposed to use it. I can kind of see how the conversation would go... An angry parent comes in asking the teacher "Why is my son learning string diagrams and mini computers. What would this ever be used for?" and the teacher would answer "I have no idea." Maybe this is the problem. Maybe people really don't understand the value of abstraction. Anyhow, EM is really quite meaty. I didn't really realize it before, but now that I am working through it I am very impressed. Of course there is no way in the world that elementary teachers could work through it. When I talked to Terry Kaufman and told him my situation he told me I "might be able to get through the first few books" because I have an undergraduate degree in math. I am not really sure what type of skills you need to get through the book 0 chapters. the math is not exactly difficult but it is quite abstract. It is certainly not meant to be accessible. But I think it is the high level of abstraction that makes it so awesome. I just worked through Chapter 2 with my daughter and there is so much in there and she really understands what she is doing on a much deeper level. It's exciting, it's math. I get chills. More importantly *she* is excited. She ran to my bookshelf and dug out Chapter 3 "Sets, Subsets and Operations with Sets" and said something like "Oh boy this looks hard this is going to be fun" Contrast this to AOPS, which is wonderful in a completely different way. Their curriculum lines up more or less with what kids learn in schools. You can do Algebra Geometry, Precacl Calc etc. but it is taught by throwing really hard problems at kids and giving them a chance to figure out solutions on their own. Then they give you some interesting methods that you can use. They show one way to solve a problem, perhaps it was the way you used, perhaps it is different. It has the feeling of being on a math team. Let's work these problems and then we can discuss how we went about solving them. For my son this was his first really awesome experience with math. The EM curriculum didn't challenge him quite enough (he was a little older and had an intuitive understanding of the material already). But when he started with Probability and Counting he would literally scream at his textbook (in an animated and exciting way...like he was having a debate with a good friend). These two curricula are completely different yet both wonderful and both elevate students towards the mathematics that they would use in college. EM on the one hand teaches kids to think abstractly and AOPS teaches kids to solve difficult problems. I think what these two curricula have in common is that they are inspiring. challenging and passionate. I find it interesting that you can approach a topic from two completely different angles and still have such amazing results.

In NY there are two different tracks Regents tracked students get a Regents diploma which is required for 4 year University (I think CC students don't need Regents classes). The tests are not really that difficult but certainly more challenging and more well thought out than tests I have observed in other states. Every year my kids and I have a little laugh at the problems with the California STAR tests, there is no comparison.

I haven't seen the Pre A book yet (I am getting it for my daughter though) but it sounds like he is ready for Algebra.

I think it's great to have teachers with a math background. I am just surprised that the teachers actually have it. Surprised in a good way.

I was going to ask "Where in the world are you from?" but then I saw a reference to the Regents exam. It doesn't surprise me that NY has higher standards for its teachers. That is not what is expected in CA. They really require teachers to have Real Analysis? To teach 7th grade???? I am astounded at the gap here. In CA you don't need anything close to that even to teach AP Calc. I think it's something like College Algebra, Geometry (which seems to be the geometry equivalent of College Algebra) Stats, and Calculus. Plus the underwater math sculpture and interpretive dance. Honestly for most of the math curriculum I don't think you need to have too many upper division math courses. But my concern is that when you set the bar too low you encourage teachers who are not all that enthusiastic for mathematics.