Unfortunately, being somewhat a younging I was in-between the "old" math and the "new math." We still learned most of the old stuff, but they tried to introduce other methods and procedures. To this day I think it did me more harm than good. I had problems learning the basic fourth/fifth grade math, and now I have problems with advanced material. (for the life of me I couldn't do high school algebra, even when being tutored by two people).

Now I often end up helping my 12 year old brother with his school work (everything other than math at least ). The kid is twelve years old and he can't write his name in script. While talking to him about it, I learned script is no longer taught in schools. If script is gone, what else is missing?

The more I sit back and look at what he is learning the more I think our educational system needs a full revamp. They spend a lot of time trying to learn concepts without having a firm grasp of the basics.