I didn't mean to prioritize it, I'm saying that level of understanding should the goal of average achievement for high school graduates. It is also really real

I didn't mean to prioritize it, I'm saying that level of understanding should the goal of average achievement for high school graduates. It is also really really far from what is being accomplished on average. High schools have seniors who can't do division and don't understand operations on fractions. Calculus is something anyone can understand, but it is seen by teachers as some super advanced mysterious stuff for rocket scientists while they struggle along to teach subtraction to 18 year olds. Imagine a physical education fitness curriculum whose goal after 13 years of training was for 18 year olds to be able to turn over by themselves and begin to crawl. That's what we are doing, being satisfied with goals for graduates that shouldn't be challenging even for 6 year olds. It shouldn't be tolerated at all. Schools that are graduating students with no math skills have had 13 years of failed instruction with these students. Not just one teacher along the way. All of them. The system should be burned to the ground and started over. That will never happen though, it's too corrupt and incompetent. Myself I've given up hope reform of the system is possible.