Accelerated math could have been a solution -- I know that when I was bored in math I did worse, and when the problems got more interesting I did better. Now I

Accelerated math could have been a solution -- I know that when I was bored in math I did worse, and when the problems got more interesting I did better. Now I have a math PhD, even though I got so bored in one class earlier on that I had to drop it in order to avoid failing. There are a lot of social factors in US schools, too. I notice a lot of young women doing poorly in algebra and precalc even though they're perfectly capable if you sit down with them and ask them to simply write down the steps of solving the problem. The social benefits of being "bad at math" can be seductive in the short terms and the long-term benefits of being good at math are entirely invisible to many young women. Guys at least see some male nerds on TV making good money; girls who want to be like nerdy tv stars know that they have to go into forensics and don't know that math is very handy for figuring out the rate of cooling of bodies and decay of tissue.