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As the Montgomery County school system continues to discuss how to get more students ready for college and the workforce, some county parents say that administrators are pushing too many middle school children into advanced classes before they are ready.

As a result, parents argue, some students struggle in their high school classes because they never mastered the advanced middle school content. Conversely, county educators say that today's generation of students need tougher classes earlier in their academic careers to be better prepared for higher education.

In 2005, the nonprofit ACT Office of Policy Research issued a national report stating that college readiness begins in middle school.

In April, the school system launched a full-scale effort to inform families how to better prepare their children for college. As part of the "Seven Keys to College Readiness" program, the school system created a Web site, distributed a brochure to all families and has hosted a series of workshops to help parents prepare their children for increased rigor.

Three of the seven keys focus on students taking advanced math courses beginning in elementary school. Fifth-graders, for example, should strive for sixth-grade math at the least to be better prepared for Algebra 1 in eighth grade.

Students who earn a "C" or higher in that course are more likely to be successful in math and science courses in high school and do well on the SAT, according to school system information. By the 11th grade, students who earn at least a "C" in Algebra 2 are less likely to take remedial math courses in college, according to the school system.

"Our goal is to get … 80 percent of our students to be college-ready by 2014," schools Superintendent Jerry D. Weast said at the time. "It's an ambitious, but very reachable, goal as long as our students know the pathway that it will take to get there."

But the pace could be too fast, said Dina Yagodich, an adjunct math professor at Montgomery College's Germantown campus with three children in county schools. While she is not against acceleration, some students can't handle the advanced pace, she said.

Her pre-algebra classes at the college are "filled" with students who graduated from the school system, she noted.

In February, the school system's Office of Shared Accountability issued a report on the number of students completing advanced math courses. During the 2007-2008 school year, 67 percent of all eighth-graders were expected to complete Algebra 1 or higher-level math. By next year, school system administrators want at least 80 percent of eighth-graders taking advanced math.

Yagodich, referencing state data, pointed out that just 73 percent of the county's eighth-graders scored proficient or advanced on last year's Maryland School Assessments in mathematics, while 26.8 percent scored basic, the lowest level.

"I am concerned for the push to get 80 percent of students a full grade level ahead when 26.8 percent of them aren't even at the eighth-grade level," Yagodich said. "The push for acceleration has concerned me, and although it is good for many students, I worry that many students are pushed beyond their abilities and are never able to catch back up."

Some county teachers also have expressed concern over the school system's math curriculum, said Doug Prouty, president of the county teachers union. Some teachers have said that the pace is too quick, and they don't have the time to go back and re-teach struggling students, Prouty added.

Due to the teachers' concerns, the county school system has formed a work group to look into its math curriculum. Some of the future recommendations could be implemented by the 2010-2011 school year, Prouty said.

But while the accelerated math curriculum is debated in Montgomery, PTA advocate Ted Willard said he is concerned that the middle school science curriculum also might be too difficult for students. Willard, who sits on the school system's Science Curriculum Advisory Committee, told the school board in May that the district has developed advanced science courses for the sixth and seventh grades.

However, "there is little evidence that the vast majority of students in the system are currently learning the science they need to learn in three years, so it is difficult to believe students will be more successful in just two years," Willard wrote in testimony to the board.

Also in the testimony, Willard said the system should give middle school students a choice of working through classes at a slower pace. Echoing the teachers' concerns about math, he said that educators need more time to re-teach and reassess struggling students to give them a better understanding of science.

"We shouldn't push for things before they're ready," Willard said in a subsequent interview with The Gazette. "If they're not ready, then that could cause bigger problems for [students] down the road."