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If I may…

For many people, it takes a great teacher to unlock things. That teacher can be a parent, a friend, even a credentialed educator. Absent that teacher, things can stay locked. There are some things I didn’t “get” until later in life. This is about the luck of the draw, and no government program can fix that.

There is one other dimension of life not addressed frequently in articles like this, where FReepers invariably bash publik skoolz or pod-eating GenZers. Bluntly, many kids are pushed into college when, frankly, they should learn a trade or go into business for themselves or just go to work.

I know plenty of people who hate math but they’re upstanding, moral citizens. Maybe they’re not econometricians but who really wants to deal with heteroskedasticity or cleaning data. Ok, present company excluded.

I believe the purpose of these articles is to, once again, create animosity. And make Special People feel better that they’re not ‘dumb.” Some people have atrocious grammar. Some people would be lost without a calculator. Some people are in both camps, but they may be magnificent musicians, artists, landscapers, movers. Elitist snobs sniff at punk rockers, Bob Ross, sweaty guys mowing lawns, and the guys carrying their piano, and behind their backs say “I’m glad I’m not like them.”

Yes, I want my senior economist to know the difference between logit and probit, I want my doctor to know how to spell Amoxicillin, and I want my sniper to perform many calculations to land a kill shot from hundreds of yards away. But I don’t want Johnny or Mary to go to college if they can’t hack it. Or if they do, then major in music or theater where you don’t have calculus, and fulfill your manifest destiny instead of making your overbearing flatulent parents Karen and Brandon happy.

it takes a great teacher to unlock things.

How right you are. And not just a great teacher, but also a curriculum that builds a logical foundation step-by-step.

Here's an answer that I have found to what is missing from the American school system:

Khan Academy Math

BTW, starting at the beginning of Khan's program and progressing back up the ladder will get the sludge in the brain moving once again and perhaps even ameliorate the mental ravages of aging.

After my father started getting some serious brain fogginess from old age, I used math to help clear up his thinking (I was his caregiver). It was like physical exercise in that he complained every day and every step of the way...but it worked. After a while, he even started to enjoy it. And his thinking and memory got noticeably sharper.