On the other hand, I'd like to measure, are the girls getting better to match the boys, or the boys getting worse, or both. I remember teaching calculus how annoyed I was that so many students didn't have basic high-school algebra under their belts--a necessity for progressing in calculus--and I do know from looking at older high school math textbooks that they are getting a bit dumbed down as the years go on. For example, I went to High School about the time matrices and operations on matrices was taken out of standard high-school algebra fare. My math teacher was so angry he kept some of the old algebra books and passed them out so we could do the chapter on matrices.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

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