DJ> MS> The _top_ reason most kids who reach your grade level without
DJ> MS> adequate math skills to succeed in physics is that math is a
DJ> MS> _sequential_ subject. If the kid doesn't learn math just one
DJ> MS> year, by whoever's fault, he will be unlikely to recover and
DJ> MS> be able to succeed in later math and math-based courses.
DJ> 
DJ> I'm not sure this is accurate. I'll defer to those who teach 
DJ> math, but it seems to me that the content is essentially a rehash 
DJ> with embellishments thrown in from 3rd to 7th or 8th grade. 
    To some extent, you have a point...up until 7th grade.  At that level, 
the material starts becoming prealgebra instead of arithmetic.  7th-8th grade 
prealgebra skills are the skills that tell a kid facing a physics problem in 
which 
      a=(b +  c)d/(e + f) 
which calculator keys to push in what sequence to find f if he is given the 
numbers that all the other variables are.  This group of skills was supposed 
to have been learned in 7th-8th grade, not in Algebra II at the same time as 
physics.  
    If the kid doesn't learn these skills by 8th grade, he will be in over 
his head by the time he gets to his first algebra course...and your physics 
course.
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