Math Skills Suffer in U.S.

The NY Times reports:

The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.

The study suggests that while many girls have exceptional talent in math — the talent to become top math researchers, scientists and engineers — they are rarely identified in the United States. A major reason, according to the study, is that American culture does not highly value talent in math, and so discourages girls — and boys, for that matter — from excelling in the field.

You might think that this is crazy, and that no one really discourages girls in math. Unfortunately, it happens.

When CPS social worker Sally Mitchell investigated me, one of her main complaints
was that I was teaching math to my daughters. When Commissioner Irwin H. Joseph took my girls away from me in January, he ruled that it was abuse for me to enter my daughter in a county math contest that was above her grade level. He said that this abuse must stop, and I haven't been able to see my kids since.

The article mentions a bunch of girls who have excelled in math. They all entered in contests at above grade level.

Now Cmr Joseph does not want anyone to hear this story. He has threatened to jail me for ten days just for disclosing Ms. Mitchell's testimony. I go on trial at 11:00
on Oct. 21.