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Ping.

Excellent article and post.

The list is sufficient evidence of Misplaced Priorities.

I took the liberty of reformatting one of the paragraphs in the excerpt of Ravitch's article:

In a comparison of a 1973 algebra textbook and a 1998 "contemporary mathematics" textbook, Williamson Evers and Paul Clopton found a dramatic change in topics.

In the 1973 book, for example, the index for the letter "F" included

factors,

factoring,

fallacies,

finite decimal,

finite set,

formulas,

fractions,

and functions.

In the 1998 book, the index listed [for example, the index for the letter "F"]:

families (in poverty data)
fast food nutrition data,
fat in fast food,
feasibility study,
feeding tours,
ferris wheel,
fish, fishing,
flags, flight,
floor plan,
flower beds,
food,
football,
Ford Mustang,
franchises, and
fund-raising carnival.