Given the sentiment in these comments, I figure this crowd might be interested in the book "Measurement" by Paul Lockhart (the guy who wrote "A Mathematician's Lament")

He's of the opinion that math should be taught not as jumping through hoops for "reasons", but as an art, enjoyable for its own sake, and that this would actually produce more confident and capable thinkers than the current approach. (I think the argument applies to almost all education but his focus is just on math.)