A 2012 op-ed by political scientist Andrew Hacker, “Is Algebra Necessary?” landed like a bombshell in the education world. Hacker assailed the insistence on algebra in schools, pointing out that the math taught there was nothing like the math people use at their jobs. He questioned why we subject students to an “ordeal” so many are likely to fail, reporting that most of the educators he talked with “cite algebra as the major academic reason” children fail to finish high school.
