[G8 Diplomat]

Of the top 20 industrialized nations, the US is last when it comes to math. (I believe the Russians are first). I've been through years of public school math classes and now wonder we're doing so badly. First, in America, many kids don't do their homework when they go home, the put in the iPod, turn on the TV, and veg out. In other countries they get to work and learn the material. Second, we fall for all these cheap, liberal-started educational fads, like dumbing down textbooks and filling them with pictures, presenting weird problems that have no practical uses (I had a problem like this back in freshman geometry and once in third grade math..long story though), and we spend the first few days playing these stupid "get to know you" games and our homework is to write an essay about yourself. Meanwhile the Russkies are learning calculus and differential equations.

[Clemenza]

Some good that done the Russkies! Their number one export is slutty tarts for American suckers.

[mathprof]

Both from experience with my kids and recent articles I've read, teachers purposely have bizzare ways of grading HW and tests. They give more credit for wrong answers with verbose confusing and explanations, than for correct answers explained by few or no words.

People who are good at math can do things quickly and efficiently in their heads and don't need to try to use many words to explain their correct answers to brain-dead teachers. To penalize, rather than reward, such talent is bizarre.

[toru watanabe]

"Second, we fall for all these cheap, liberal-started educational fads, like dumbing down textbooks and filling them with pictures, presenting weird problems that have no practical uses..."

Exactly. Open up a high school math textbook and you'll find disgustingly little actual math in it. Speaking personally, glossy photos of smiling Peruvian peasants have never helped me factor a polynomial or figure out a proof.

[Moonman62]

Of the top 20 industrialized nations, the US is last when it comes to math. (I believe the Russians are first).

I think that demonstrates that a country only needs so many mathematicians. America is number one in so many ways, we must be doing something right.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

First, in America, many kids don't do their homework when they go home

They are better off not doing it.

Homework aside from maybe reading a chapter or two of some book is busywork. The motive behind homework is not to have the child learn anything but to make the kids and parents jump through the school's hoops.

I found this out when I was taking care of my niece and she had two hours of homework a night that required my helping her. She was in FOURTH grade. I asked her teacher finally why she had so much. I thought maybe she was not doing her worksheets in class.

To my surprise the teacher admitted that it was deliberate and designed to "get the parents involved and make parents and kids work together."

It was a waste of her time and mine for no other reason then this airhead wanted to control what she did outside of the class room.

[federalist1]

I believe Singapore is #1. We used Singapore's math program for our two children. My daughter is now 15 and enrolled at a local college because we ran out of math to teach her at home. She's 15. Singapore is NOT rote learning. It teaches problem solving from day 1 of any topic, and it shows several methods so that children who see problems differently can see how to solve them differently. My kids LOVED it, and still go back to the books for fun.

The U.S will continue to rot until people who know math and science are permitted to teach it -- over the dead bodies of math- and science- illiterate teachers and administrators. No offense to teachers, who really are some of my best friends, but as a group, they score in the lowest 50% of college grads. People who are math and science smart typically can't stand the crap that suffices for teacher education courses. I'm one of them. I taught my own kids instead.

[dfwgator]

My daughter is in second grade, and I basically told her that what she gets for her homework astounds me in how simple it is compared to what I had in second grade.

I've got her already way ahead of the class in math, she can do her times tables through 9 X 9. In her class, they are still not doing any addition problems using numbers greater than 18, that's nuts.

[Llobid]

I was a Junior High math teacher for over 20 years. You are correct about the “dumbing down” of our curricula. In our country’s effort to remain politically correct, instead of recognizing that some students simply can’t or won’t perform up to the standards of others, it teaches to the least common denominator. If students can’t pass the test, then it can’t possibly be because they haven’t learned the material ... it must be because the test is too hard. So the difficulty of the test is lowered, so that most students can pass it.