Did anyone see this article from the New York Times back in March? Here is a quote from what the Bush administration wants to do to improve math...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/education/14math.html?_r=1&em&ex=1205726400&en=43d6c2db14891c1f&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin

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It offers specific goals for students in different grades. For example, it said that by the end of the third grade, students should be proficient in adding and subtracting whole numbers. Two years later, they should be proficient in multiplying and dividing them. By the end of the sixth grade, the report said, students should have mastered the multiplication and division of fractions and decimals.

Does anyone else read this and think, "Adding and subtracting whole numbers by the end of 3rd grade????" I think I read somewhere??? recently that, over the last 25-30 years, American textbooks have been dumbed down by two complete grade levels. I wondered what other people thought of this? I distinctly remember becoming proficient in long division in 4th grade. (and 35 years ago I was in a very backwoods, southern, small town that was not known for its stellar educational results. Gifted was a completely foreign concept.)

Another link that I wanted to share about the future of math is from the Washington Post entitled, Accelerated Math Adds Up To a Division Over Merits. It describes D.C.'s goal to accelerating math for everyone so that 80% of kids get algebra 1 by 8th grade.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...ml?nav=rss_print&sid=ST2008060303480

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Public schools nationwide are working to increase the number of students who study Algebra I, the traditional first-year high school math course, in eighth grade. Many Washington area schools have gone further, pushing large numbers of students two or three years ahead of the grade-level curriculum.

I was not a part of this group discussion when these articles were published, so maybe they have been already hashed out. But I thought they were relevant and was curious as to what others thought.

acs: Sorry... I haven't heard of the McGraw-Hill sequence. I did have "Unified Math" a very, very long time ago... back in the dark ages of the 70's.

Mom to DS12 and DD3