I think that the closer analogy is “how hard it would be to read the newspaper if you had to sound out every word, every time you encounter it.” Kids who just figured out 8+5 via calculator turn around and do the same thing for 5+8 two calculations later.

One of my kids had a requirement to provide a calculator, any calculator, for 5th grade math. When I asked the teacher if they had any discussion about order of operations on cheap dollar-store calculators versus scientific calculators, the teacher wasn’t aware that something like 3+4*5 had more than one answer. The kids are trained to trust the calculators without having a clue because the math apple doesn’t fall far from the teacher tree unless parents are very, very vigilant.

And to those of you who don’t see why people need to know basic facts – have you ever been to a store or fast food restaurant and had the person behind the counter unable to count change because the register isn’t working? Why is it socially acceptable to be math illiterate but not reading illiterate?

You may not have used you high school algebra or geometry since high school, but you have used the thinking skills you acquired in those high school math class. In high school, most kids do not know what career they will go into, but whatever career it is, they will have to know HOW TO THINK LOGICALLY. Math is the universal language that all kids can speak to learn logical thinking and reasoning. When my students ask when they will use a specific skill outside of my math class, this is what I tell them. They are doing brain calisthenics in my class, stretching their “logic muscles.”

Think of how hard it would be to read the newspaper if you didn’t know the alphabet, or even a few letters. Kids who don’t know their math facts are at the same disadvantage in their high school math class.

http://roborant.info/main.do?entry=1409

There are programs out there like that such as Singapore and the one that we use in my family’s homeschool called Right Start- I only wish that more government-run schools adopted them.

The present credit crisis gripping our country illustrates a lack of mathematical understanding on the part of much of the populace. I read pundits blaming debtors for greed. Perhaps they’re right, but having read about the state of American education, I think it is at least debatable that many debtors had no idea how quickly an increase in an interest rate would add up. I think the NAEP math scores agree with this conjecture.