OMG. Bush has been out of office for 6 years already. “It’s Bush’s fault” is not a legitimate response, and almost never was. I’m not saying he was good for the

OMG. Bush has been out of office for 6 years already. “It’s Bush’s fault” is not a legitimate response, and almost never was. I’m not saying he was good for the country, oh no not at all, but you can’t blame this on him. This partisanship is a disease on the nation. Many of the tricks are there because math in the US has traditionally been taught for repetitive manual use. You need your accounts calculated, you get somebody to add all those numbers and put the result on paper. I was just looking at a math book from the 1940s, and the first couple chapters are all shortcuts to doing multi-digit multiplication and stuff. Math education has not caught up to a reality filled with abundant accurate computing power. This horrible way of teaching math really is the most common way it is taught in America, and it has been so ever since schools were started in America. Not all those tricks are common, especially things like horses and Jesus fish. Those stupid drawings are only a desperate attempt to use a mnemonic to memorize a rote procedure. Every previous effort I’ve noticed has tried to eliminate this problem and failed. New Math in the 1960s. Reform Math in the 1990s. Everyday Math in the 2000s. The problem is not in the exact curriculum used. A good teacher with enough autonomy can teach well with any of these curricula. Obviously, there is a problem somewhere between concept and implementation.