The future of American children would look brighter if algebra was scrapped off the public school curriculum altogether. This assertion was made by panelists on a Fox News bulletin, speaking on Wednesday.
The discussion was prompted by a finding made by a Queens College professor in a recently released book. The New York based professor noted that the United States came among the worst – performing nations in the developed world when it came to graduation rates. This dismal performance was alluded to students’ failure in math subjects. This finding prompted the presenter, Pete Hegseth to note that many people were starting to wonder, ‘’Who needs algebra?’’
“Is this a war on math?” Hegseth questioned co-host Andrea Tantaros, who came clean that she had failed Algebra I. “I whole-heartedly agree with this professor,” Tantaros responded. “I struggled. I had honors English, but in math I needed a little bit of help… I said, ‘Please could I drop out.’ But I actually took Algebra I twice and barely passed Algebra II.”
Rather than quitting school altogether, Tantaros mentioned that she managed to persuade the school authorities to allow her not to take the math subjects. “I think that if you’re not good at math, you take the basic courses,” she put it. Co – anchor, Sandra Smith was not amused though. “It just takes time, and I’ve never met a teacher that wasn’t willing to help someone more, ‘’ she mused. Hegseth, having enrolled his children in private school, was of the opinion that the reason for the declining scores in schools was the ‘’mumbo jumbo’’ found in Common Core standards.
“They are setting them up to fail,” Hegseth stated. “And then we’re lowering the standards and we’re trapping kids in failing schools.” Eboni Williams drilled on the fact that the ‘’reasoning and logic’’ fostered by advanced mathematics was a significant skill though Tarantos could not agree.
“The next time I’m in a Bloomingdales and I have a certain amount of money to spend and I’m trying to figure out how many pairs of shoes can fit in x amount of closet space, I’ll text you,” she said jokingly. “I have one mathematical [equation] that I apply. If I like it, I buy it.”
