I agree with Bill and Thumper but only to a point.
Struggling in math in HS usually leads to avoiding things that involve math later in life- and that is really limiting professionally. Even in Business School (in a quant heavy program) as a former Math-phobe I avoided interviewing for ANYTHING that listed “strong analytical skills required”. Guess what- I learned in my first professional role that indeed- I had strong analytical skills. Not enough for theoretical physics or civil engineering- but MORE than enough to interpret a focus group of 10 consumers talking about why they don’t like to get spritzed with perfume when they walk into a department store, or why they routinely take 8 items into the fitting room when the sign says “6 item limit”. Yes, we changed the signs. And more than enough analytical skills to understand sales data, why a certain item was below plan and something else was above. And to predict that dropping the price of something by 20% would boost sales dramatically, and our gross margin would STILL be over 40%.
People who come out of HS who aren’t good at math don’t bother with ANYTHING that even sniffs of math, analysis, interpreting data. And that’s limiting. Our world is filled with math.
So if the D is struggling with HS math, it’s worth helping her get stronger in math. Not for an SAT score, not for college admissions, but because being stronger in math is going to set a foundation for her entire professional life.
I’ve had junior hires for my recruiting team tell me- in tears- that they wouldn’t have taken the job if they knew how much math was involved. Really? You need to track whether interviews for a particular role are up or down vs. last year??? You need to report on recruiting expenses-- up 10% vs. year ago but we made 20% more offers/hires (so that’s good) or up 10% but we made 20% fewer offers/hires (so that’s bad)??? You don’t even need to do the math-- Excel does it for you! All you need is a basic level of common sense (which they all have). And I need to coach them through their phobia… they can all do up/down, good/bad… but if there’s a three digit number involved they freeze.
Be kind to your D=== and support her (if she wants) in getting confident in HS math!