Over 60 years ago a young girl in a Catholic girls high school took a test to determine the fields she might like to pursue. Her biology teacher at the time talked to her about the results. The test results indicated that she would be happy in fields related to inventing and engineering. Her biology teacher told her that there were only three professions open to women at the time: teacher, nurse and secretary. Her high school at that time did not offer physics and only offered math classes up to trigonometry. Not only that, the trigonometry class, which she took in her senior year, only had three students. When she matriculated as a college major in Biology, she was required to take calculus and physics. Needless to say she found it difficult to compete in these areas, since most of the male students had taken physics and at least precalculus in high school. Over 75% of the students at that time were male! She ended up having to repeat physics and just passed the calculus class. After completing the Biology curriculum, with a less than stellar record the young women went on to study engineering and completed a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering with an overall B average, but an A average in math classes. What was the difference? A “can do” attitude towards math. Now over 60 years later, in the name of equity, there are proposals circulating in States like California and Virginia to eliminate or reduce the availability of advanced math classes in high schools. Strangely, at the same time technology continues to become increasingly pervasive in every part of our lives and jobs in technical areas are prevalent and good paying. Logically proficiency in math would be stressed in our high schools and colleges to prepare students for the workforce. Instead, so we don’t give one group an advantage over the other, the proposal is to take opportunities away from students. In order to succeed in technical curriculums in college, students need a strong background in math. Not providing that strong background in math in high school limits and in some cases eliminates a student’s opportunity to pursue particular technical fields. In addition, a student going into a technical area, where he/she does not have the math background, often leads to failure and dropping out of the program. To compete in an ever more technical world we should be promoting proficiency in math for all students, striving for more not less difficult math courses in high school and promoting a “can do” attitude towards math for all students. Promoting advancement in math for all students in high school, to whatever level they can master, is key to providing the workforce for the new technical jobs we keep hearing about in the news. More math and more advanced math are key to opening up opportunities to all students.