Former teacher says many of her students didn’t know math basics

Re “Dismal student test scores deserve boos, not cheers” (Oct. 17): I taught sixth-grade math for 24 years and found that the biggest impediment to teaching at that level was that so many students had never learned the basic math facts for addition, subtraction, and, in particular, multiplication. Just about everything in the sixth-grade math curriculum requires that. Some time ago, someone decided it wasn’t necessary for the kids to learn those things which are the basis for math learning. Let’s get things going again!

— Debby McNeil, La Mesa