This is a failure of instruction in middle and high school. The kind of algebra on entrance exams are things I learned in elementary school and that most of my peers had no issues learning. This kind of failure to learn algebra hasn't existed for more than one, maybe two generations. Lowering the standard does absolutely nothing in solving the education issues being faced in the U.S. today. If we have become more interested in fixing statistics than actually educating our children, the battle is already lost, and we should indeed think about investing stock in Brawndo.Making mathematics mandatory prevents us from discovering and developing young talent. In the interest of maintaining rigor, we’re actually depleting our pool of brainpower.
Algebra is not so hard or complex as to warrant the kinds of claims the author of this article makes.Community college students face an equally prohibitive mathematics wall. A study of two-year schools found that fewer than a quarter of their entrants passed the algebra classes they were required to take.