Here are a couple articles from the local paper:
Math Tests Carry Shock Factor
Preliminary Math Test Failure Rates
Basically, 90% of the high school students are failing middle school algebra. There seems to be some controversy about how those tests were administered, but 90% is simply too large to be merely a statistical outlier. As a department, we agree that this is pathetic and that we want to do something about it, but we have no plans yet (we also have no funds -- but there's some work being done on that side). Our plan is to address this issue at the middle school level because we think high school is too late. Elementary school level would be better for getting students interested in math in general, but we don't think it will have as much of a lasting effect. I think we're going to target some middle school teachers, but this has to be thought out more carefully.
