Dancing Around the Four Sides

(Icon is pointed at the algebra op-ed.)

they had an op-ed on the NYT advocating making algebra non mandatory

I showed this "op-ed" to my daughter. She wants to study pure mathematics in university. "Appalled" doesn't begin to describe her reaction. Her first comment was along flywoman's lines, that algebra underpins everything--every time you need to solve a problem, in any field, you use algebra even if you don't realize it. Her next comment was that it smacks of a "Algebra's too HAAAARD! Let's get rid of it!" dumbing-down mentality.

(Another sign of the times of the War on Math: she's having huge trouble trying to find universities hosting a pure math program. Schools are dropping pure math in droves to focus on "applied" math, e.g. math for business/finance, statistics etc. We fear for the state of knowledge.)