Math education in the U.S. is notoriously behind the rest of the world. It's about time. Speaking as someone who barely passed undergrad calculus and still has nightmares from that 7 problem 4 hour final exam.
Honestly, a lot of it is because of elementary school teachers in my opinion. I don't want to bash them too much, but they often struggle(d) with math. They don't have much of a number sense, and now we're asking them to teach our kids how to have number sense (which is what common core does; it shows that 65+37 = 70+32, etc etc). I actually remember my 6th grade math teacher specifically for this reason. She explained things to us in a way that gave us number sense, instead of just memorizing rote steps. It made my math skills so much better, and I'm still thankful for that today. Sadly, it was only one teacher at the entire school.
I'd love to start a charter elementary school (as much as I generally dislike the concept of a school getting state/federal funding with no testing accountability) where each subject is taught by someone who actually studied the subject, not just "elementary education". Then you might see kids enjoy math and understand it, as their teachers understand and enjoy it and can teach that; it's infectious. I wouldn't be surprised if reading scores also raised when kids are taught by people who clearly enjoy reading and are passionate about reading.
I think math is taught too slow in the U.S.. I remember learning to add, then once I got whatever score on the flash card assessment I got to learn to subtract, then multiply, then divide. Slowly, painfully, and in a way that leaves you bored early, causing you to checkout and fall behind, then you are left wondering why you suck at math later in life.
I think we could stand to move the math curriculum up 3-4 years. Geometry and trigonometry can be taken in 5th grade instead of 9th, algrebra 1-2 in 6-7th grade, then calc in 8th grade, instead of waiting until high school to take these courses. Then in high school, you could offer advanced courses and an actual course progression in statistics, rather than solely AP stats.
Tone down the difficulty, maybe, but there is no reason why these concepts shouldn't be introduced a lot sooner. Basic algebra is pretty intuitive, and in geometry classes you are kinda just plugging and chugging sines and cosines with your calculator anyway. This is coming from someone who sucks at math and wishes they didn't.
In the 6th grade, you were mentally developed enough to understand some of the basic concepts of algebra. Someone (most) in the 3rd or 4th grade isn't developed enough to understand those concepts. This would be analogous to teaching elementary school students latin roots, it just doesn't make much sense, and their ability to dissect particular words is of little to no value at that stage in their development.
This isn't true. Kids start learning algebraic concepts in roughly 2nd grade, and are well-acquainted with the concept of variables, algorithms, order of operations, roots & exponents, converting fractions to decimals & vice versa, etc before they get out of 5th grade. The only fundamental key concept I don't think they're taught, that is critical in algebra 1, is how to solve systems of equations.
It wouldn't improve yours if you're doing that, but the point of it is to teach the kids number sense and how numbers work and can be manipulated to make problems easier.
