All that said, I have zero idea what they're teaching kids these days in school.
You might be shocked.
It might be something peculiar to Arizona, but my friend was having problems helping her child with his math homework; he was in 5th or 6th grade at the time. She asked me to look at it.
It was one of the more stranger things I've ever seen; it looked like math equations, except there were no numbers involved - just shapes (like circles and triangles), as well as various mathematical symbols (+, -, =, x, etc).
Looking at the example problem on the homework sheet was confusing as well. All in all, I had seen simpler problems on IQ tests; in fact, the problems reminded me of such IQ test problems.
With a little thinking, I realized that what the math problems were teaching was a form of simplified algebra - except instead of using standard algebraic symbols (ie, numerals and letter variables like x, y, and z) - symbols were used instead (symbolic algebra?). Once I hit upon that, it all was fairly elementary.
What shocked me, though, was that they were teaching this to elementary school children; this wouldn't be so bad, but I tend to wonder how it would effect the learning of standard algebra and later "higher" maths in junior high and high school levels. I don't so much have a problem with teaching elementary school children algebra, but if you're going to do it, perhaps teaching them the standard methods, then advancing into symbolic methods, might be the better way...?
Then again, I'm not an educator - maybe there's something in teaching using a symbolic method, then switching to the more standard method in later years, that works better in teaching algebra?
I also tend to wonder how other parents cope with it - those who may have never seen anything like it before in their life, and don't have experience thinking "outside the box", or have friends who tend to do that on problem solving; how do they assist their kids?
Maybe Arizona tends to be a "testbed" for new math teaching methods?