Are they really learning more math?

as someone who helps students at the college level with their mathematics i can tell you the students are not getting better at math. my personal experience is that students are becomming worse at math every year. most of the students i see are good at using the ti-83 calculator and excell at ping standardized tests (i have worked with several students who received scores of 4 or 5 on AP exams) but very few are "good" at math. it is discouraging to me to see many kids who know by rote many of the rules (ie polynomila rule for taking derivitives; quotient rule; etc0 without understanding what a derivitive is. recent changes in mathematics education for grades 6-12 have produced students who are efficient in the plugging in of data into prescribed formulae but who lack any real understanding of mathematics. so i guess my answer to your question is no, they really aren't learning more math.