Did really none of the replies mention FUN? Math eduction (school level) suffers brutally from the style of teaching that implicitly suggests that nothing could be farther away from math than fun. People are horrified by math because in school they learned that it is something utterly dreadful. Huge surprise they are neither very good at it nor much inclined to learn more? Big fail for the teachers, they _are_ to blame. This is from my (German) perspective where teachers do have a decent salary and working conditions. If you have to mention politics make sure it's similar for the place you are referring to (regarding cash, conditions, and perspective) before anything else. Cheers, jj, now a teacher (post school, students of engineering)