> Real understanding of concepts has been replaced with step by step methods that allow you to arrive at a solution without needing to understand what you are d

> Real understanding of concepts has been replaced with step by step methods that allow you to arrive at a solution without needing to understand what you are doing. Maybe this raises the floor of math education? The majority of US high school graduates are not rated as proficient in math and a small minority are actually ready for college level math. That's been true for a very long time now. It appears that there's a belief among educators (or whoever comes up with the curriculum decisions), that it's better for society to raise the floor than the ceiling on math. Given how poorly math education outcomes have been for a long time now, I'm all for them trying something new (it would be insane to continue to do what clearly hasn't been working for a long time now). That said, I'm pretty conflicted on it meaning that more gifted students lose out on access to learning anything more than the floor level. I don't understand why they need to make that tradeoff at the expense of those who have above average mathematical aptitudes during their school years.