Keeping tabs on their purchases. Many people these days use calculators, often in their phones, to make basic math transactions. (Express-Times file photo) RoseMarie Mazza Bauer's proposal to make ...

Writes Andrew Hacker, a professor of political science: There are many defenses of algebra and the virtue of learning it. Most of them sound reasonable on first hearing; many of them I once accepted.

While educators and policymakers debate whether 8th graders can be readied to learn algebra, Sigrid B. Frawley sits in front of her kindergartners with a magic bag. She puts three tokens in the bag ...