Math Education in Vermont

Vermont? Why Vermont? Here in the border regions Vermont Public Radio comes in stronger than NH Public Radio. It was one of those interview shows and started off with a Vermont state ed bureaucrat, I missed his name. This bureaucrat admitted that Vermont students were doing no better than mediocre on the "kneecap" (his word) test. Kneecap? That was a brutal Irish Republican Army treatment for captives, leaving them in great pain and crippled for life. Good name for a school test.
Then he admitted that many or most Vermont elementary school teachers had never taken a math course in themselves. And, Vermont high school students can graduate without taking algebra or geometry. And most of the science courses taught in Vermont high schools are Geology, a descriptive science with no mathematical content at all. The real high school science courses are physics and chemistry, which are sparsely attended. In short, Vermont schools allow a student who wants to, to avoid taking any mathematics at all. And he personally believes that math is "difficult" which is why so many students avoid it.
They brought on a new guest, a practicing elementary grades math teacher. That's a new one. My elementary grade teachers all taught math (arithmetic) them selves. They didn't need to call in a specialist. This guy stressed the importance of mathematical learning in the very early grades.
He's onto something there. Kids have to know addition and multiplication cold in order to go any farther in math. Addition and multiplication involve memorization, of the multiplication table and the addition table. The kids just have to memorize those tables and get drilled on them. This isn't fun, and isn't creative, it doesn't let the child demonstrate originality, it's just hard work, for both child and teacher. But unless the child comes out of grade school with a really solid base in arithmetic, he/she has come to the end of the road in math. And locked him/her self out the science and engineering track,the track that leads to real jobs.