At this point in the semester, I have read several articles on math education, and studied readability and increasing readability in my college course. Thus I have a few observations that I think are important.
First of all, many students find math difficult and find math textbooks to be difficult to read. Thus teachers must use different techniques and strategies to get the material across. Without these strategies, many students tune out.
In addition, the Common Core Standards are having a huge impact on the textbook industry. Teachers are often disappointed that the textbooks available do not cover what they are required to teach for Common Core. Thus the teachers must add more lessons that they create from scratch. The textbook industry is trying to incorporate Common Core standards but has not yet caught up.
Finally, digital media is enormously useful. Websites like Cengage have different online math modules that help students work through problems. Online resources often give immediate feedback. I looked at several homeschool curriculums and these also have online modules. Some of the homeschool online modules strike me as being user friendly and interesting. There are numerous free websites like Kahn Academy and 17Calculus that have excellent instructional materials.
It is a new day for math education.