Montgomery students who passed Algebra I in the eighth grade were more than twice as likely to receive a bachelor's degree than those who didn't have the early algebra exposure -- 75 percent for the eighth-grade math students, compared with 34 percent who didn't take the course.
My suspicion is that whether or not a student takes algebra is a reflection of the emphasis the family is placing upon that student going to college. The article doesn't make clear whether taking algebra in the eighth grade is taking it early or "on schedule." Clearly taking it early would require special permission which would likely only be given to really bright kids. I'd guess that eighth grade is the normal schedule for algebra.
In my high school, all those decades ago, algebra was normally taken in the ninth grade, followed by geometry in the tenth, second year algebra in the eleventh, and solid geometry/trigonometry in the twelfth. Calculus as an advanced placement or AP course was not available in our small high school. Today, it is available in many schools so algebra probably starts in the eighth grade to make taking calculus possible.
