I need some advice on our son.

[CincyDem]

19. I may be late to the party so take this for what it's worth.

1. Whatever decision you make will be the right decision for your family. Only you know the total context of the decision - it's more than just a grade on a report card. But you already know that.

2. Algebra tends to be a bedrock skill on the math side - it's going to come up in geometry, trig, calc, stats...etc. There's a reason why they teach it first. Take this from someone who did well in eight semesters of college math.

3. Answer the question "why is he doing a little less well in this area now than in others". If it's an attention to detail thing, that's going to work itself out in practice and experience. But - it's a conceptual challenge...for some reason he's just not wrapping his mind around the concepts, that could be a challenge for him in the future because a lot of stuff is going to rely on those concepts. Not getting the concept isn't about being smart or stupid. And it's not about the teacher being a bad teacher or a good teacher. It's about the match between the two - about the way the teacher teaches and your son hears.

For what it's worth, we had two kids who did advanced math. One reached too far up in the 8-9th grade and decided to do Algebra I again. The other reached far to far in freshman year at college and decided to take another run at it in a later semester. In both cases, they were happy with the outcome. That was in our family - yours will be different.

Don't look at it as helicopter or overly competitive - look beyond the grade and ask if it's conceptual or executional. If it's conceptual, give serious consideration to taking another run at it next year. If it's executional - move on and he'll pay more attention to details with age.

Good luck with either direction - there's no right/wrong answer and his greatest source of success will be your (his parents) interest in his success.