The most important thing of all is to have funded, competent and highly respected math teachers. This is a social ssue. The math material taught should cover both the basics and the advanced. For half a century this has been anathema to government in Australia. Worse, conservative governments fear and discourage literacy and numeracy in the general population. On a related topic as I am on slashdot. There is very little in computer science that needs anything more than high school math. So why not teach the latter better rather than experiment with the former in schools? The failures in our education are consequence of a pervasive disrespect for education in society.

No need. Just take the opportunity to move to LINUX. Install LINUX on old PCs and enjoy the benefits of open source and the numerous advantages of LINUX for education.

And teach them how to use computers productively rather than teaching them how to code

Very often in American discourse there is a demonstrated misunderstanding of the term 'socialism'. Socialism is a system in which society is democratically controlled by the working class and where the workers control the means of production. Under socialism the productive resources of society are channelled toward the elimination of class divisions. Under socialism, capitalism can no longer prevail. A society in which public money is used to fund big business (through for example Q.E. stimulus and reduced taxes) is NOT socialism. The present system is one in which market deregulation is considered a necessary condition for wage equality and inflation stabilisation (Milton Friedman). Such a system is known as neoliberalism and is currently the west's most popular system. It should therefore not be surprising that unrestrained public donations to the rich is common place.