The standard path is optimized for college admissions discrimination. It is prep for the SAT and calculus. What is not taught is effective problem solving. Instead we are basically teaching rote pattern matching. The proof of this claim is that chat gpt aces the SAT in math but fails on any advanced test like the IIT exams. Chat gpt even fails advanced AP English and literature exams. A place a priori you’d expect an LLM to do well.

Yes we should learn the chain rule and derivatives/slope but arguably developing statistical, mathematical and even computational reasoning/thinking is a better foundation.