Integrated Algebra II/Trig – too much stuff
When New York State moved from Course I, Course II and Course III, already a little weird, to Math A and Math B, they recut the courses and shuffled material. And then they slightly unshuffled when they returned to Integrated Algebra, Integrated Geometry, and Integrated Algebra 2/Trig.
Except there’s as much false as true about that statement. They didn’t really unscramble the courses – they just gave them unscrambled-sounding names. They didn’t return to Algebra, Geometry, and Trig. Internally they insisted that these were just new labels on A and B, divided into 3 instead of 2. And, and this is the worst part, they removed very little, but actually added topics.
So, teachers saw the new names, and smiled. Then we saw that Integrated Algebra was about half algebra, and required far less than 50% to pass. That was annoying. Then we saw that Integrated Geometry was a little hard, but mostly focused on geometry.
And this year we’re teaching Algebra II/Trig for the first time, and we’re racing through Performance Indicator (PI) after Performance Indicator, and teachers are realizing, there’s just way too much stuff, and way too little time for extras and the sort of activities and practice kids need to absorb the stuff. In some places teachers are realizing that they will not get through all their topics. Series and sequences are new. Everyone is wondering how deep the statistics and regression will go.
There is an amazing discussion of this on the Association of Mathematics Teachers of New York State (AMTNYS) high school listserve. Go read what they are saying. Keep clicking the arrows to read the responses.
JD2718 
When you were in elementary school you scored A+.
When you were in the middle school you scored A+.
If you think it is hard to learn Integrated Algebra 2 , your teachers and schools were fooling you all those years.
I am sick and tired of public school and private school. They are dangerous places. I will not send my child to any school where criminals rule, I will take care of my child.
When my child performs better than NYC high school students, the chancellor should be ashamed. How do you trust these schools? Look what they did to me,
http://puthenthope.org/uftnycboe/
I understand you were treated unfairly.
But that does not make it ok to insult others. You know a lot of math? Good for you. But even more reason to treat those who know less properly.
Often those who understand math well have little ability to understand the difficulties others have, and even less ability to empathize.
That’s worth working hard to try to understand.