Faster calculators incoming?
The downstream costs of how we do standardized tests are bonkers.
The standard back in the early 2010s was still definitely TI-84 being about the most powerful calculator you could use for most tests that mattered. Those calculators are intentionally kept slow by TI because of these requirements.
My impression of the n-spire was that it had always been marketed much more towards professionals. The first one I saw in person was at an electrical engineering internship where my boss had just bought one.
Covets my vintage HP 48GX.
There's a nice profit margin on those calculators, but there's also a floor price for electronics at play because at some point, making outdated chips, LCDs, PCBs, etc. doesn't actually get cheaper. So graphing calculators will always cost $30-$100.
While they're wildly outdated, it doesn't make sense to arm kids going into standardized tests with Chat GPT, or even Wolfram Alpha.
Standardized test math is pretty simple. Either design the test so a scientific calculator is enough, or better, keep the numbers small enough that it doesn't matter and have answers as simplified expressions, e.g. 6*sqrt(2).
To be clear, I had already placed out of the calculus course that would have taught how to evaluate these integrals, so I wouldn't have been disadvantaged by it being required. There definitely weren't any differential equations in the course though; it seems like you might be overestimating the intensity a 100-level physics course required for people like me who never did physics again after.
I really believe there is something to be said for putting yourself through the mental strain of evaluating the integrals (or code) and that doing so contributes to you having a better feel for how it works on a conceptual level as well, you don't just get better at calculating by doing things the hard way.
If you can easily see the solutions and manipulations you can make to an integral by hand, then you are more able to quickly get a feel for what it represents just by looking at it. If you are not as experienced doing them by hand, just reading them is going to sap some of your brain power and energy, and you will be less able to reason about them abstractly as a result.
I think the whole "just learn the concepts" approach to almost anything is fundamentally misguided and not at all how representative of how humans really learn.
I do agree with you that in theory we can do better than asia, but that is too high of a milestone given that we are basically currently significantly worse than Asia on all fronts.
Adopting elements of the Finnish model would probably be an improvement.
With geometry, the style I was taught emphasized explanation of complex problems using proofs but building from first principles.
This is obviously the right way to do applied math. Then whatever engineer is building whatever the thing is that depends on the math can compute to whatever precision is necessary to keep the bridge from falling down or whatever.