In the United States, we have abandoned the experiment of returning to old, successful way of teaching math - No Child Left Behind led to parity for girls and boys for the first time in history but was unpopular with teachers and unions who said we shouldn't be 'teaching to the test'. 

Canada thinks just the opposite; like America in the 1990s, they are watching test scores plummet, and are thinking about abandoning the "concept-based learning" from the early 1900s that America has returned to - but they want to see if there can be a science reason to do so. 

How the human brain learns about numbers can make a difference in understanding how both brain activation and performance can lead to better ways to teach students before they become convinced they are 'bad at math'.

The root of the problem: This is your brain on math by Ivan Semeniuk, The Globe and Mail