This article is riddled with poor reasoning.<p>1. The author's claim about "the politics of who gets to be a part of the mathematical elite" has almost nothing to do with the contention that "math is everywhere".<p>2. Math <i>is</i> everywhere. I make this claim by virtue of the facts that (1) you can, in any situation, ask questions like "how many?", "how much?", and "which one?" (which leads to encodings) and (2) Math is just our ordinary processes of reasoning, made rigorous and mechanized. Whether you're looking at someone's face, walking through the zoo, or cooking, there <i>are</i> underlying mathematical realities to be considered, if you're interested.<p>3. The author writes, "When we talk about math in public policy, especially the public’s investment in mathematical training and research, we are not talking about simple sums and measures." Except that, sums and measures and similar basic arithmetic <i>are</i> extremely relevant to making policy. When we talk about % growth targets, or inflation, or social security, back of the envelope arithmetic is just what you need to get an idea of what a policy actually does, or what it's results have been.<p>4. Examples in this article are cherry-picked and without supporting context: "Priests used astronomical calculations to mark the seasons and interpret divine will, and their special command of mathematics gave them power and privilege in their societies" But this is only true if mathematical prowess (rather than say, winning a lottery or being supposedly divinely annointed) was the key to joining the priesthood. Once accepted as a priest, what difference would it make whether you gave mathematically correct, or entirely nonsensical predictions to a crowd?<p>5. As another commenter writes "Mathematics is one of the most open fields of [S]cience". This is spot on. Existing free resources are really fantastic, and while you can make a completely valid point that not all children are given the relevant fundamental education to allow them to take advantage of that, the same argument applies to <i>any</i> field of education -- down to and including basic literacy. It makes no sense to lay the blame for this on mathematics.<p>tl;dr: This article is a giant non-sequitur, chock-full of poor reasoning.