A Washington organization that promotes rigorous academic standards is presenting students, parents, and policymakers with what it hopes are practical reasons why it is important to take advanced math through the publication of a newly released collection of documents and other resources.
The toolkit, published by Achieve, includes policy papers and other documents that try to make the case that advanced math prepares students for college and good-paying jobs.
It also includes five brochures that attempt to show, specifically, how math skills are used on the job in the aerospace, manufacturing, construction, health-care, and information-technology industries.
One brochure, for instance, explains how new hires at Toyota receive math training in computing, real numbers, models, and linear equations, and describes how those skills are used on the factory floor. New employees who have solid grounding in those areas come in with an advantage, the document says.
