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Originally Posted by Anh_Minh
I wouldn't have been against greater specialization either. (Which for me would have meant more maths, more physics, and less history or literature or philosophy.)
Though I really don't know why it's always the maths that have to take that kind of shit in the media. Except maybe that, indeed, the journalists and writers tend not to be good at it.
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I think it partly has to do with how useful it is. Do most people use math in their daily lives, beyond what they learned in the early years of grade school? Not really. Even if they wanted to, I'm not certain that many people could find opportunities to apply math to. I won't say that all other school subjects are used daily by everyone, but I think there's more opportunity for it.
That isn't reason enough to start cutting math, though. The reason to cut it gets into the author's point: for what ever reason, math is the academic subject that results in the most people failing and having to spend more time in school or working toward their degree. He seems to be arguing that we're losing out on a lot of productivity over one subject, and a subject with questionable value for most people at that. Additionally, he argues (and gives one example) of how companies hiring in certain areas still train their employees in the particular type of mathematics that those jobs demand.
In theory, there is value in having people held back and challenged by math. The math itself aside, it's a lesson in personal discipline, among other traits. But is it worth the years lost as people repeat coursework, or the potential productivity lost as people grow discouraged and leave school entirely?
I happen to think that it is worth it. I'm not even talking about algebra itself: remove this hurdle, and what stops you from removing the next subject most responsible for students failing? If students never encounter something that they have to struggle over, how well-prepared will they be for the "real world"? I think I can see the author's points, but his priorities differ from mine.