SANTA CRUZ – Instead of shooting paint-ball guns with friends or loafing at home, 15-year-old Nash McQuaide has spent a chunk of summer break hunkered down trying to solve algebraic equations.

It's calculus day in after-school tutoring at Hoggard High School, and the equation on the whiteboard stretches on for what seems like miles. Students clutch their hair, wrinkle their foreheads and ...

It is rare for opinion on any of my columns to be evenly divided. But the flood of comments I received on my piece about getting rid of Algebra II had good arguments on both sides, and indications of ...