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" I work in Champaign schools and last year I co-taught an Algebra I class with a bunch of IEP kids. I was baffled that these kids were in Algebra to begin with. They couldn't even do 2+ 2 without a calculator! Especillay, my students, the IEP kids were clueless about the whole logic and thought process. It frustrating, to try to teach them as well as the fact they most of them were behavior problem students too. They should have been in a general math or pre-algebra course. I'm sorry but some kids need to be left behind in order to move ahead. "

" Not every child is ready for algebra in the 8th grade. Kids need to be at a certain level of development in order to fully understand the concepts. For most, that time is in the 8th and 9th grade. Now little Jonny's parents do not understand that and forces their child to take a course they are not mentally prepared for. Not all kids are developmentally ready for such a class in the 8th grade. "

" Here is a novel idea: let's get back to teaching at a student's level of learning ability instead of all being on page 234 by November 1st! But NO, we continually have to turn out boxes of ticky-tacky all in a row that are exactly the same in our public schools. To do otherwise is discriminatory, and we just cannot have that! The dumbing down of America continues to march on. We can all only achieve at the lowest common denominator or we might risk hurting somebody's feelings or make them feel badly about themselves. "

" Really, who needs Calculus? Sure, it's needed for some of those really important engineering jobs, and similar fields. However, not every kid needs to be in a calculus class to suceed. I guess the whole issue here is that the poor urban youth are getting left behind from the start. "

" i took intro to algebra when i was i freshman out at olympia.i think i flunked it or did real bad because i couldn't understand what the ? was.if you dared to raise your hand to ask the teacher he would make you look dumber than hell and make you feel about a foot tall.l think he was probably a good enough mathematician but he sure couldn't teach.far as that goes if he was that good he could have been a cpa somewhere.i think he was a 4 foot tall high school teacher that hated high school kids.as far as that goes i don't care for them either but i'm not a teacher. "

" I knew the way students are taught math would eventually lead to this problem. Years ago it was decided grade school students needed calculators. Many of them were taught properly pre-calculator, but by the time they reached high school they were no longer capable of doing basic math such as adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing because they had forgotten how to do it. Walk up to any high school student and ask if they can change a fraction into a decimal without a calculator; even if you allow them to use paper they can't do it. Maybe it's time to go back to basics, so they'll be prepared to take Algebra. I wonder how many mastered the use of the calculator and went on to teach math. I remember how my Algebra instructor at ISU taught the course. All she did was copy the book on the board and refer me to the math clinic when I had problems. There I found math majors who couldn't add and subtract. I ended up hiring an older math instructor to privately tutor me, one who could remember the basic math skills needed for Algebra. Take the calculators away from the students. "

" Thank God,Massachusetts Institute of Technology was not mentioned in this article. Originally developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology MUMPS as it was then named was only the third language (after COBOL and FORTRAN), and the first database to be given the ANSI standard. MUMPS was originally developed in the middle 60's on a National Institute of Health Grant at Massachusetts General Hospital. "