The educational gap Arlington should be addressing

While many in Arlington are obsessed with the persistent racial gap in standard test scores, 

there is another, perhaps more important, gap that should be addressed.

Elon Musk points it out here:

"Elon Musk needs H-1B workers because math education fails our students"

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/elon-musk-needs-h-1b-workers-because-math-education-fails-our-students

"While much of the coverage of the H-1B debate focuses on the foreign-versus-American-worker angle, 

the real issue regarding H-1Bs is that the U.S. is failing to produce domestic workers with the requisite math skills required by Musk’s SpaceX and other high-tech companies. 

In 2024, a shocking 72% of eighth-grade students taking the National Assessment of Educational Progress math exam failed to score at the proficient level -- 

a full 6% increase over the 66% of eighth graders failing to achieve proficiency in 2019.

Why are American students doing so badly in math? 

The answer lies in the ineffective math instruction they are receiving."

I think there is a broader problem, and issue.

The prioritizing in our broader culture of various "Woke" issues, over the hard work it takes to become proficient at the STEM fields.

A teacher can only do so much.

It takes a real commitment by the student to do the hard work to master these fields.

The cited article goes on to criticize Common Core:

"In the early 2010s, most states adopted the Common Core national education standards, which were touted as a cure for America’s math woes. Unfortunately, Common Core turned out to be bad medicine. 

Common Core confused many students by emphasizing indirect ways to arrive at the right answer instead of just learning straightforward mathematical operations. 

For example, in multiplying numbers, children are often asked to draw pictures instead of simply memorizing the multiplication tables."

I am not sure that is the real problem.

For example, take a look at this:

"Number & Operations—Fractions | Common Core State Standards Initiative" https://search.app/1B2fErzBGsGjMjoP7

To understand that, it is helpful to replace the abstract variable "b" by the specific whole number "2".

Then go through the reasoning.

Once you understand what is happening when b=2, 

then you can understand the general case of an arbitrary whole number "b".

There are two distinct issues:

One is purely computational.

E.g., memorizing the formula 

(a/b) × (c/d) = (a×c) / (b×d)

The other issue is conceptual.

E.g. given whole numbers a and b,

what exactly does a/b MEAN?

It is that latter question, of meaning, that the sample Common Core page cited above is getting at.

Again, the easiest way to get into that is to let b=2.

Then we can relate 1/2 to "half", 

so a/2 is just half of a.

E.g., 6/2 = 3, and 

5/2 = (4+1)/2 = (4/2) + (1/2) = 2 + (1/2),

which is usually written as 2 1/2.