Math Education over the past 20 or so years in the United States has been considerably dumbed down. Most people are aware of this because there are several schools and districts that no longer teach times tables or how to do arithmetic operations with factions or decimals.

Lesser well known is the fact that in secondary math the facts are still being taught but the reasoning behind the facts have been de-emphasized. Students are not learning proofs or derivations of formulas like they used to, they are just being handed the facts to accept on faith.

My son is taking physics this year, he is being handed the formulas to use, but not being shown the derivations of the formulas or how to derive formulas for himself. I asked the physics teacher why, he said he used to teach the derivations but no longer does because students are not as mathematically prepared as they used to be.

Teachers who are fond of not teaching times tables typically say we should focus on the higher order concepts instead. Why then do modern math educators disgard the higher order concepts in secondary math? Both need to be taught.

Welcome to the "Millenium Generation", where mommy & daddy run down to protect you from ever failing, loosing, striking out, not getting a trophy & not getting what you want.

Schools have let sports & entertaing the kids take place of sound reading, writing, math & science skills.

If the Govenor really wants a great work-force for the future, let the schools get back to the basics of teaching & have sports be really "extra-curricular".

AIMHO

The problem isn't that math time is taken up by sports, the problem is that time spent in math class isn't being spent properly.