People who don't know math think they don't need math, that they never use it. I assert that if they did know math they would use it and their life would be improved. Marketing people take advantage of innumeracy so you are easily manipulated by your math ignorance. I recommend reading "200% of Nothing"

The lottery is a tax on people who can't do math.

Decades ago I went to buy a car and they told me they would sell it to me for $1,700. I told them I would buy it if they lowered the price so I would pay $1,700 after they add the 5% sales tax. The sales guy tried to figure out how much that would be but couldn't figure out the answer. Can you? This is an extremely easy problem that most people cannot figure out and yet it is obvious that you might run into this type of problem in normal everyday life.

p.s. the answer is $1,619.05, can you figure out how to compute this?

I have noticed that a great deal of the math I've learned I couldn't put a word problem to if I tried. I got superior on the state assessment tests without even trying (because aided kids had to be able to pass the test, and I was in the gifted program). No child left behind is stupid, but at least some of the math might be useful.

I'd have to agree - Check mate. I hated math, but had to take four classes of it, largely due to the fact that I only passed every other class. If you don't use it, you lose it, and I don't know what I'd do if someone showed me an equation from that class.

Math and Science are more simple to gather test results on.
They are good indicators of intelligence and diligence.
Learning math and science can be more entertaining and therefore more
kids will get better at it. That is my goal with Worldlearningtree.

Phaser says:

As an engineer, I am also disturbed by the lack of math and science education in our public schools. Even worse, is the approach to math that is called "IInvestigations". In this approach, the kids are taught every conceivable way of arriving at the answer, without ever actually reinforcing the mathematical rule that really governs the operation. So, it takes them 6 weks to cover 3x4=12, but none of them has any idea why 3x4=12, but they have 16 different methods for getting the answer. Rather than teaching them the rule, then offering alternatives if they aren't getting it, they teach all the alternatives without the rule.

Phaser, this is also denounced as "fuzzy math" and has been fought in several school districts, including Rochester. I encourage you to fight it in your child's school district.

Everyone should learn math and science because everyone votes. Science is only about 350 years old. People were extremely ignorant back then, compared to now. We can't move forward when so many stupid people are voting based on 2,000 year old religions.

Religion is the disease, science is the cure.

That education is badly performed and the name of the rocks and critters are useless I agree.
But the modalities of how different types of rock or living beings form is very important to open one's mind, to understand how non-trivial things (and in general, our world) work.
Most kids have just narrow horizons, seeing a few more different things would help their thinking skills.

Weird. I always resented classes like history, literature, government and "social science" (which is -- let's face it -- a soft science at best and mere speculation at worst). There doesn't appear to be much economic value to various art appreciation classes, either.

If we can dump all of the humanities, rhetoric, math, and science, maybe we'd have the ideal educational system.

It doesn't bother me so much when people don't know calculus, trigonometry, algebra and geometry. However, I find it fairly distasteful that I know SO MANY adults who "just don't understand" fractions, percentages, and similar low-level math concepts. That's just pathetic. Likewise for simple science and biology topics. It irritates the hell out of me that people don't know the difference between viruses and bacteria, and don't understand how those relate (i.e. they don't!) to genetic disorders or poisons. Let alone simple chemistry concepts like elements vs molecules, or simple physics.

you're too clever to underestimate the importance of mathematics so i assume you're trolling.

bad scott.

Math and science are necessary to every person in the work force. They teach problem solving, and nearly every economic success in the USA is about solving a problem. At engineering school I had to take an intro to mechanical engineering class. I was stoked to because it was going to include instruction on some fun software and there was going to be a group design project. The first thing the Professor taught, and rightfully so, was that engineering is a business process and the projects would be dictated to us by a fundamental "need" driven by a customers "problem". He then taught us about criteria and constraints and all sorts of real world facts. I ended up designing a really cool corn husking machine.

Science teaches the scientific problem solving method "PHEOC" (problem,hypothesis,experiment,observation,conclusion). This is much like what is done by almost any professional occupation throughout the country. A chef wants to make his pasta tastier, he thinks garlic will help, he tries a small batch, he tastes it, and decides if he likes it better. No different than PHEOC. A marketing guru wants to know were to sell his excess beer, he thinks Germany, sends some to a select number of German stores, He observes the sales and decides if his company should set up a distributorship there. Scientific problem solving is everywhere is everywhere.

Much is the same with math, you learn to separate out the necessary from whats not in the dreaded story problems.

The world needs more problem solving based education. While liberal arts education is also a must, it helps us to communicate and understand the human nature of the world around us, problem solving has many more practical and beneficial applications.

I believe in teaching students how to think for themselves, teaching them how to learn, and all that. But now that I'm 35, I've come to realize that I don't regret (all) the rote memorization I was forced to do. And I certainly don't regret having been forced to learn things that I don't use day to day in my job. It turns out that all these things have become flags firmly planted in the soil of my understanding of the world. Examples:

I had to study sociology (note: I work in software) at both a high school and undergrad level. I never apply the techniques I learned in those classes, and I don't remember any of the details of specific studies, etc. But I do remember that there are conditions that can lead to a "revolution" (of culture, politics, etc), I did learn that you can apply statistics to human behavior and learn something about us as a society, I did learn that racial inequality goes beyond name calling, violence and cutting someone out of a job, and so on. All these things affect the way I vote, the way I understand the economy, the way I understand the world at large...

I had to memorize dates, like the signing of the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and so on. Do I use these dates in my job? Hell no! But when someone talks about events in history, these dates help me form a picture of what was happening in the world at the time. The more dates I learn, the more I start to understand how the world evolved into the frenzy it is today... and the more I can place myself within that context. I'm American, but I happen to live in Brazil now, and what I learned in my history classes helps me understand the parallels and the differences in the evolution of these two "new world" countries.

I had to memorize the periodic table of elements. I don't remember 95% of that table, but I DO remember that there's a column for metals, another for inert gases, and that the properties of these elements in a column or row are related. I also understand that their ordering relates to their nuclear weight and electrons. What good is that? Well, it means that when I hear about "Buckyballs" or some new phenomenon in silicon chips or someone starts to describe quarks to me or nanotechnologies, I understand that this is NOT black magic. I understand that chemistry, quantum physics and other sciences are organized studies of concepts that I can actually grasp if I take the time to study or someone takes the time to explain it to me.

All these things help me relate to the world around me in and outside of my job. I'm not saying that the U.S. education system provides the perfect mixture of memorization and theory, but I don't think we should toss out topics just because the chances are slim you'll need it to make a living. I've heard it said time and time again that one of the differentiators of an American-based non-technical education is that it does help teach students to think by providing a breadth of study, even in things that they will never use in their job. And I think that's an important ingredient to separating the inventors and creators - and citizens of this complex world - from those that just make a living.

One of my (retired) teacher friends recently showed me an article (a clipping, so I don't have a link). There is a high school in Texas that has the highest number of scholar awards, and it is being denied money next school year because it has failed in No Child Left Behind metrics.

Yeah. Something is messed up.

One of my (retired) teacher friends recently showed me an article (a clipping, so I don't have a link). There is a high school in Texas that has the highest number of scholar awards, and it is being denied money next school year because it has failed in No Child Left Behind metrics.

Yeah. Something is messed up.

It's not just school - I'm doing a BSc in Computer Science and Information Management.

One of the subjects we learn is "Computer Organization " - basically how computers make use of memory addressing, and the different principles about how its handled. I somehow don't see myself writing my own operating system anytime soon?

Another is Advanced Data Structures. About 10% of what we learn is applied in programming today (searches and sorts and the STL), the rest is "good for computer people to know about". The latter is what was applied in the 70's and 80's (i.e. learned by our lecturers) and is no longer relevant and would be bad practice to use. We spend 4 months on recursion, and at the end we're told that it's a great idea but actually we should always use an iterative structure.

With so MUCH to learn about computers today, and so many advanced niche applied fields of computer science available, why are we wasting thousands of hours on learning outdated theoretical information? Students who have a personal interest in the History of Computer theory should study this, let the rest of us learn advanced Java, Linux, Delphi and Oracle - the skills that seem to appear in every job requirement.

GenX didn't have this problem. ;)

The boomlets do. (all trusting of the system and oblivious to corruption etc...)

One day the boomers will be gone, and their boomlets will be open season for my generation.

Things will probably get worse when the cynical Xers take the reigns by deception and bastardly conduct... but not worse for other Xers, only the boomlets. :)

Infact, this would be the perfect place to make the pact. All other Xers... look after your kin and oppress the boomlets in revenge for what the boomers did to our generation. :) Mwhaha!

Seriously though, have you ever watched modern day university students try and get on and off a bus? :) Clueless and oblivious to their surroundings. It's not like we actually have to try... they won't realize what we are doing. :)

Wow, Scott. Maybe tomorrow you can find a way to insult the remaining 10% of your readers, too.

The thing about testing math and science is these subjects transcend culture and language. No matter the names you refer to them as, two apples and two apples makes four apples. Unless of course you happen to be trading in apple derivatives, in which case two apples equals the ability to purchase four apples at some point in the future and the other two apples are loaned out to an orange farm to offset risk so they can lend out oranges they have not yet grown to a juice company. Then a cold snap hits, the orange crop fails, your apples get eaten by the orange farmers and we all drink the kool aid instead.

Yeah, math and science are totally irrelevant. So we're filled with a country full of 20 year olds who can wax eloquent on a Keats poem or tell you all about Jacques Derrida's thoughts on the metaphysical, but who can't figure how much a 15% off pair of khakis at the Gap is going to cost them.

My wife teaches Trig at a Big Ten University. The number of students that are hoping to become nurses, pharmacists, and other professional careers who can't even add fractions -- something we were supposed to learn in about the fifth grade -- is astonishing.

(This HAS to be a DMD post.)