My son is in grade 2 math is definitely taught. At this point he’s already doing pre-algebra using perimeters of polygons. I think they will start angles by the end of the year. I was in Ontario middles school about 20 years ago and even the easiest math course you could take in grade 8 involved basic trigonometry.

I don't know about Ontario, but here People can skate by.

I used to tutor. Quite a lot of kids missed something simple somewhere in the beginning and then were skating by having passable but not good grades. Not understanding what is taught, but getting enough points.

The tutoring consisted of going beck few years and teaching them basics again. They improved, but school never did that "maybe this person now can learn the thing he/she missed 3 years ago".

This idea of missing something simple really speaks to me.

I remember “factorization” not clicking for me for the longest time in public school. My grades slowly got worse, until the right teacher came along and explained it in a way that clicked. I proceeded to have a successful math focused education in high school and university.

I wonder if part of it is that kids are at the mercy of what their teachers want to teach / the curriculum. I think kids often know which things they struggle with… they need help articulating it, and then someone to work with them through it.

Have kids in (edit) elementary school right now and it is pretty bad. There is no rigor and time for practice. Back in the day you would get homework but now that's pretty close to useless or teachers don't grade it. As a parent I have to supplement work after seeing what the schools are leaving students with. For now, it is working but it really should not be my job.

We had one elementary teacher in particular who stated that there was 1 study done in some Nordic country that proved homework does not help. (reference to said study was not provided). Interesting that if you look at high school there is tons of homework; same for university. If that 1 study had any merit it would have applied across all levels. The real truth is that practice makes perfect. But teacher unions do not want that burden on teachers and students suffer in the end. I do not get why elementary schools don't assign homework (I have no doubt private elementary schools do - they get better results).

If you have a parent who recognizes this short changing and is capable of supplementing the education there is a chance for recovery or at least mitigating a decline.

I think what was shown not to help is mandatory homework - and that's assuming a pretty high-quality education in class, as is standard in Nordic countries. But the teacher should absolutely be there to help the students with any extra work they might choose to do on their own.