i'd analogize with basic physics. you can get pretty far using newtonian formulas and the like without ever delving into the calculus underpinnings. same in eco

i'd analogize with basic physics. you can get pretty far using newtonian formulas and the like without ever delving into the calculus underpinnings. same in economics. calc gives you a deeper understanding, but only adds utility at the margins (which is helpful in academics or r&d, but not so much in high school). you can have the computer do curve-fitting and finding optima for you and still learn a lot about how to tease out useful information from an otherwise amorphous mound of data.