Trend-starting Texas drops algebra II mandate

[hfojvt]

49. that sounds like an awful lot

In my school, graduating in 1980 - science was required in 7th and 8th grade. I, of course, took the elective - not required - 9th grade science, and then also in high school, physics, chemistry, and advanced chemistry. Biology was required in the 10th grade. I did NOT take the elective advanced biology.

For math, the only requirement was Algebra 1 in the 9th grade. About sixty of us were on the math advanced track and took algebra 1 in 8th grade and algebra 2 in 9th grade.

No foreign language was required, but I took the optional 4 years of German. Almost completely useless, even for my trip to Germany in 2001.

I also took all the electives for fast track math - geometry in 10th grade, trig in 11th and senior math (which was not calculus or pre-calculus, it was probability and matrices, which was kinda college sophomore level math). Some people were on the slower track and still took all the math they could. Thus I had juniors and seniors in my geometry class and seniors in my trig class, and also some seniors in my chemistry class that I took as a junior.

But for some reason I took physics as a senior and had some juniors in that class.

I skipped the computer science class. Probably wouldn't have had time for it. I also ended up taking an extra two hours of school through the three years. We had an early schedule 8 to 215 and a late schedule 9 to 315. For three of six semesters, including my entire senior year, I came in early and left late.

What a waste of a life.

Nobody respects ME as the "learned janitor". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elihu_Burritt