The problem sometimes just gets pushed back in time by funneling unprepared high school kids into AP Calc classes. They don't have the algebra for it. I've seen

The problem sometimes just gets pushed back in time by funneling unprepared high school kids into AP Calc classes. They don't have the algebra for it. I've seen this first-hand and while there are sometimes one or two kids for whom it is a godsend (and it's possible the benefit to them alone justifies having the rest of their classmates in an inappropriate class), the rest of tend to flounder. AP! AP! AP! the cry goes. How can our kids succeed without the AP classes the suburbs have? But then you are really just renaming trig as "AP Calc" and with very few (but again important) exceptions, no one scores above a one.