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To my knowledge, even before HP-48 level calculators came in the classroom nobody cared about arithmetic past middle school. The core of the teaching was proofs and a lot more theory, and that went on into CS for me.

I'd compare it to the ability to write and run basic assembly. We did it, and got checked on it, but that was not what we were there for.



At the same time, I remember most of high school math barely needing calculators outside chemistry and physics.

Look at some of the SAT math questions:

https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/digital-sat-samp...

The questions are all designed to have a tidy, closed-form answer. A calculator is either marginally helpful or outright cheating.




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