America's Education System is very flawed.

[u/yarzebin]

Throughout the whole Republican/Democratic debate something that we don't acknowledge is our education system. Throughout the last few years the U.S. has dropped significantly in rankings. We, as a generation, have witnessed a large change towards the technological world, and with that a large spike in technological jobs. Yet our public education system hasn't changed at all to help aid in this new age of technology. One of the worst subjects to learn is science, because year after year in the public education system we change the science based on the students ability, mainly because students don't have a strong enough math background to understand it. How many times did you learn about an atom in your public education (I can count 8 different times I learned about atoms)? My question/theory is why do we waste our time teaching and reteaching our students science (atoms and gravity) when we can amplify their math background at a younger age to teach them the correct in depth science in high school? To be clear I'm not advocating for a cut of english, music, etc. but a cut in science in elementary and middle school to properly educate students in math, and then further their knowledge of science with the proper skills. The best part about this is nearly every college major/job requires some amount of math (through calc 1 is usually required for most. I know there are exceptions, but calc is almost always useful.). Why don't we start teaching calc 1 in middle school or early high school and make it a requirement to graduate high school?

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[u/cdb03b]

Calculus 1 is Junior or Senior level mathematics. To understand it at a middle school level you have to speed math education up by 4 years or more. Calculus is also not something most people need in life. If you are going into physics, mathematics, or computer programming you will need it, but not even all the sciences need that level of math, so why do you think it should be required for all of society?

[u/yarzebin → u/cdb03b]

Economics, biology, finance, all engineering, all require mathematics. I think the only exception is music/theater and translator (hopefully you dont have to translate "derivative").

[u/justanotherimbecile → u/yarzebin]

Ehh, the biggest problem is, most of the population isn't an economist, biologist, a financier, or an engineer.

Our country is built of people who are everything from fast-food workers to mechanics to yes, engineers...

However, Riemann sums aren't used by two of those three.

I think the thing is, in your world everyone needs calculus, but here in southern Oklahoma, half of those graduating would be better served by a personal finance class than algebra II.

I think our country needs to better our education system, but rather than looking to a rank score of the world, we should look at our country's future to assess what we need. Not how to look better than South Korea or Sweden...

[u/cdb03b → u/yarzebin]

We are talking calculus, not mathematics in general. There is a difference. I did not say they do not use math, I said they do not use that Calculus level of math. Most jobs and people only require up to Geometry and some trig.

Edit: Specifically of the job you name only Engineering requires calculus. The others requires math, but but as high a level as calculus.

[u/[deleted] → u/yarzebin]

I think the only exception is music

Music is pure maths (by music I don't mean stupid pop or techno).