I have written some of my thoughts on this topic before on HN (like in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36650010 https://news.ycombinator.com/i

I have written some of my thoughts on this topic before on HN (like in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36650010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36650010) In short.... The math curriculum my kids have experienced in California and Colorado is village idiot stupid. Math course need to be based upon well written books... student need print copies of the book. The books need to have well written and designed lessons with numerous fully worked out examples, and need to use good print quality with an appropriate amount of limited color to the engage the reader. Books do not need to change every 2 years at the K-12 level... the books i used back in the late 80's, early 90's were fine... the math literally hasn't changed at all since then. Students need to be encouraged to take written notes during class. Students need a lot of consistent homework practice with gradual increase in concept complexity/difficulty (ranging from "plug & chug" to challenging word problems and physics/engineering/real-world examples) and proper spaced repetition. A "proper" rate of increase in difficulty and the amount of spaced repetition is critical to optimize kids confidence in their mathematical capability and their enjoyment of the topic... if they think/realize they are actually good at math, the may enjoy and appreciate it more. In both CA and CO the math classes: - have no book, or an e-book which is dog shit bad. - my kids were encourage just to listen and pay attention but not take notes. - only had like 2-5 homework problems every other night. - lesson plans seemed to make many illogical leaps in topics and subject matter and material difficulty... I'm especially looking at you, California. Literally copying the Kumon math curriculum would be better. I'm begin to believe that the degradation of US math education is a "long-game" plan of "nefarious actors" to rot the US's long term technical capability from within. Also considering how little teachers are paid, etc.