15 years ago they were doing this new math crap. It took me awhile to figure out what they were wanting my kids to do. My one daughter could do it either way (new math or regular, memorized math). My other daughter could only do it the regular way.
After my one daughter got her weekly “exam” (4th or 5th grade???) back with it all “wrong” the teacher called us in. We asked the teacher if the answers were wrong. “Well, no - but she didn’t do it the right way.”
“Well, as long as the answers are correct, we don’t care. But keep marking them “failed” if you want to.”
I don’t recall what the teacher marked them as after that.
I know because I was one of the poor kids that had to try learn the convoluted mess. I ended up one night in tears because I could not figure out how to divide. My dad asked me what was wrong, sat down with me and taught me how to do it. It was simple, there was no guessing and as long as you knew your times tables and subtracted correctly you got the right answer every time.
I went to school the next day and flew through the work and got a zero because I did not use the guessing method.
Dad visited the school to have a little chat with the teacher and principle. I do not know what was said but I never went back to that school.
My niece was criticized for not multiplying 2 3 digit numbers together correctly. 6th grade calculators cost $1 sis says why would she ever do that