I have a younger sister who is currently going through the High School system in Canada, and as the son of a Teacher and an Engineer (both of Russian upbringing), education is a constant hot topic at family gatherings. While we are not experts on these topics, I'll share some of the opinions that we've reached.

The education in North America (not necessarily the US alone, I live in Canada) is significantly lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to mathematics. This should come to no surprise to anyone who has studied with anyone outside of this country. The Asian and Israeli kids (I am singling them out as I lived in a predominantly immigrant heavy Jewish/Asian neighborhood of Toronto, so I only have them to compare against) in my High School classes consistently scored higher than those born in Canada in all math courses, and this continued throughout my undergrad.

This widening gap between high school and college math is most prominent here, as compared to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. In my humble opinion, this is largely due to our policy of "no child left behind" when it comes to Education and, as a secondary cause, due to Teachers teaching the "Fear of Math" (I'll get to that later).

As a society, we are constantly attempting to make sure that all our kids have an equal opportunity at success in life. Pursuing this endeavor, we have decided that rather than recognizing that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, we should level the playing field. But how do we level this field? We simply adjust to the lowest common denominator. We want our children to score higher on the standardized tests, and when the scores are low, we simply make the tests simpler. This lowers the bar so that the weakest links in a particular subject area can keep up (it also allows politicians to get reelected and show how "great" of a job they're doing).

I think this is inherently wrong. First, not everyone needs to be educated with the same level of intensity on a particular subject area. Second, you are preventing "super stars" in particular areas from ever developing since they will never get to grow to their full potential. Integration is too hard for some Grade 12's? Let's remove it altogether. My sister, who is a decade my junior, will never learn even derivatives in high school. Algebra and geometry? Gone. My dad's high school ended in grade 10, and by the end of Grade 10 they have learnt derivatives, integration, and the importance of the natural logarithm. How many of us in our 20's can say the same thing? Yes, the drop out rate was higher, and if you didn't push yourself the system sure as hell did not care, but this is also the system that sent a man who shares my first name into space.

As a society, we have gone soft. We are babying our kids into believing that everything is roses. It made me furious when even as early as Grade 4, my sister would come home with a poor mark and say that it's ok because she "did her best". Really? What do kids really know about doing their best? of course if she truly did her best it would be ok and often when I see someone truly struggling to grasp a concept that they can't I feel both sympathy and have great respect for them, even if they fail. But at such a young age, there is no way that anyone knows what "their best" is, and this constant statement from her teachers is certainly not helping. In fact, I've never heard of "doing your best" until I immigrated to Canada.

And then, then there's the teachers. Oh the teachers.
Few people are as important to a society's success as the teachers of children. They are in a direct position to influence and train our minds at a very important stage. And yet, they are underpaid and disrespected, such that only "those who can't do, teach" has become an unfortunate reality in many school systems. This is of course (and luckily) not always true, as some of my closest friends have dreamt of being teachers for as long as I can remember prior to ever beginning their Bachelor's degrees. In a high school environment the situation is also not as terrible as in the elementary schools as the teachers have at least specialized in the subjects they are now teaching.

However, in the elementary school, the situation is in fact worrisome. Class coordinators (those that you spend most of your day with), teach practically everything from Math, to English, to History, at least until grade 5, and sometimes even through middle school. As such, they are in a particularly strong position to put the fear of _____ into you. Generally, this happens to be the "Fear of Math". The teachers may in fact be great educators of English, and may have a very strong foundation in early childhood education, but quite often, these same teachers are the ones who were not great at math growing up, and so they subconsciously teach their own fear and lack of understanding to the kids. I've seen this first hand from kids who are afraid of math without having even tried, and it used to baffle me, until I talked to some of my Math teachers in high school and they explained this concept to me (yeah, I was a nerd growing up and still keep in touch with some of my teachers ;)

I realize that I place a lot of blame and offer few solutions. The truth is, I don't really have many solutions, if I did I would be trying to implement them. I think the position of teacher should be highly respected -- as much as a Doctor and/or a Lawyer or even an Engineer. I think this can only be achieved if teachers are not as heavily underpaid as they are today... I think that the policy of "no child left behind", is fantastic, but it needs to incorporate the realization that not everyone is the same.

Finally, I think that Arthur Benjamin's formula for changing math is something everyone should spend 3 minutes, watch, and think about:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/arthur_benjamin_s_formula_...

I'd like to apologize to my sister for singling her out in this post, she is a great kid with a good head on her shoulder's. I'd also like to apologize to any teachers that I have inadvertently offended -- I have nothing but the greatest respect for you and your profession. I have been BLESSED by having teachers who did not tell me to just "do my best", but rather challenged me at every turn.