“I don’t care. Even 20 years ago there were no computers to learn math. And math was more advanced then than it was on that weak math test from the 19th century.
I will laugh to myself the next time someone says they don’t teach math anymore. Math is definitely more advanced now.”
I work with people who apparently passed some sort of calculus courses in college, as I did, who cannot deal with obvious, practical math, i.e., comparative sizes, estimations and magnitudes, never mind even the simplest math without the use of paper/pencil, calculator, or spreadsheet (preferably, with a graph or other pretty pictures).
I do not consider this “progress”.
http://www.nysedregents.org/Grade8/Mathematics/20100505book1.pdf
Here is an example of a real grade 8 math test. Compare this to the garbage that was used in the 19th century.