The move is part of what Director of Instruction Joan Mahoney calls an “interesting journey” in curriculum. For example, students no longer learn to stack two numbers and multiply down in third grade, though those lessons are taught in fifth grade. Instead, teachers use those two years to focus on alternative methods, such as asking a student to arrange tiles into a larger square.
Parents have noticed changes in their students' homework, including fewer problems per assignment, and less cumbersome problem-solving techniques with standard algorithms.