Algebra standards vex U.S. educators

NEW YORK, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Debate is running high among U.S. educators on how best to standardize and improve the teaching of algebra throughout the country, USA Today said.

Currently, 21 states require students to pass algebra to graduate, and most are now encouraging teachers and textbooks to reinvent it, stressing real-world situations while minimizing calculation and theoretical concepts.

"It's not the way we learned it," says Baltimore summer school teacher Valerie Stamper, who attended high school 30 years ago.

But critics say schools are diluting algebra, making it almost unrecognizable and less useful for college-bound students.

Tom Loveless of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank said today's algebra teaching methods are "like teaching Shakespeare in comic books," adding "The content has been dumbed down."

The percentage of students taking algebra is rising, but U.S. students' math performance remains well below that of other industrialized nations, the newspaper said.