I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why the national reaction was so strong to Andrew Hacker’s op-ed in last Sunday’s NY Times, “Is Algebra Necessary? ” After engaging with various blog posts and ...

High school math, and algebra, in particular, is in crisis. Although some students thrive on the pathway to calculus, most do not. Algebra I is the single most failed course in American high schools.

Under the Common Core State Standards, Algebra 1 is a much tougher course than what was taught previously in most states, teachers and standards experts say, in part because many of the concepts that ...