Math team question,,,,,

[Mind_your_head]

My friend/neighbor homeschools. Well, her son is now 20 y/o. He hasn't "officially" graduated from HS. He doesn't have his driver's license either. ANYWAY, the homeschoolers totally blew-away their competition in the last few math competitions, but my feeling is that a 20 y/o is competing against a 16 y/o. Very unfair. Cheating, infact.

What do you all, wise DU'ers think?

[izquierdista]

1. Age is not that important

If the homeschoolers are using the Saxon texts, that would explain why they did well on a math competition. Saxon is the ultimate "teach to the test" book, as it is long on exercises and short on concepts. Most math competitions, except the few designed like the Putnam exam, select for students that have worked lots and lots of calculation problems. He may have an advantage by being older, but there are bright 12 year olds that can clean the clocks of high school seniors in math competitions.

[sense]

4. Saxon Math

Saxon is considered "drill and kill". You're drilled endlessly over and over until your love of learning has died. It's widely despised by people home schooling for academic reasons.

[izquierdista]

6. Academic or religious reasons?

The age of the child in the OP is kind of a clue that he might be of the latter and not the former category. As you point out, children who are homeschooled because the local school district sucks, generally do well and might be able to enter college at 16 or 17. Children homeschooled to keep them away from evolution in biology classes and the Enlightenment in history class, they could well be sheltered until they are 20 (or older). In which case, they probably are using Saxon math texts since there is lots of busy work there to take the place of teenage lust.

[sense]

2. homeschooling

My home schooled son is now 18 and has 3 years of college credit. The fact that he doesn't have a high school diploma is irrelevant and he is much more representative of home schooled kids than your neighbor. I don't know any home schoolers who are 20 and continue to insist they're in high school. Home schoolers are blowing away the competition because they're not constrained by all the teaching to the test, and only teaching to the test. The home schoolers who win these contests are not cheating nor are they older than the other competitors. They're actually learning the subjects in depth and understanding them. Colleges love them. Well, colleges love the ones who are home schooled to provide an education, not to keep them cloistered away so they can indoctrinate them into their mythology.

[Believing Is Art]

3. I don't think it's cheating

It's kind of hard to make academic competitions in high school completely fair unless all the students are in the same class. Some schools may let students skip a year or two ahead and others do not. Would it be fair if a 16 y/o in calc 1 competed against another 16 y/o in alg 2? The second student may be just as able, but policy did not allow him to get ahead.

In the long run, these things don't matter. I know someone who was homeschooled for a long while and then went to a private school. He got a 1500-something on the SATs (back when it was out of 1600), so it would seem he was doing well. First semester in college, he flat-out failed calc 1. Turns out his private school never taught him trig. Oops . . .

Ability usually wins out in the end, especially in something as objective as math.

[Ms. Toad]

5. Hmm...like my daughter

competing for valedictorian and places in college at age 17 against the 19 year olds whose parents started them in kindergarten more than a year older than my daughter started? (She wiped them out, by the way.)

Or the kids whose schools offer them a full 2 or more years of college level math, when my daughter's only offered a half year?

Age is not really determinative of ability in math (aside from a short period in late middle school/early high school when kids minds are not necessarily developed well enough to handle geometry.

All sorts of factors mean that interscholastic competitions aren't "fair," but neither is life. Don't spoil your kid's interest in such competitions by complaining within earshot of competitors cheating.

[Mind_your_head]

7. Thank you all for the replies. eom

[McCamy Taylor]

8. Age is not important. Maybe he is homeschooled because he was bored at school ' cause he's smart.

He could be late graduating because he had behavior problems in school because he was bored, and that is why they took him out and homeschooled him. Or he could be good at math but have a reading problem like dyslexia they are having to work at. I'm better at math than reading.

[Mind_your_head]

9. Hey, I REALLY am all for homeschooling......thanks for consideration

but there is no 'deficiency/problem' in/with this guy.

He's very smart, been homeschooled very very well. He's just not being allowed to "move on now". (The Math Team thing is kind of a tangent, really. I brought it up b/c I wondered, 'how long are they going to allow him to be on math team'? At some point, he's gotta 'Move on' to college, a job or whatever).

I hope I explained my concern somewhat adequately.

[Mind_your_head]

10. Just to mention, I don't have anything to do with math team in any school district,

private school, or in any way shape or form. In fact, math and I are *not friends*....I don't understand it, and it doesn't seem to understand *me*.

[TWiley]

11. 14 ... the answer is 14

every, bar none, home schooled child I have ever met can just barely read, and does not understand mathematics. They are full of bible stories though. Our company just fired one of these fella's because we are so slow. He failed every entrance exam that is the normal requirement for everyone else under the condition that he got a GED and was able to pass the tests. About 6 years later, he still could not pass the GED. I even helped him study for it some. No luck.