Why would that be confusing for anyone good at math?
When you have to show your work it's a nightmare. I'm sure in the end is likely better but essentially changing the way mathematics have been done for thousands of years seems like an odd choice and I seriously doubt it will allow American kids to test better at math and science.
You have to look at it from the perspective of a first grader or whatever age this is taught. It's about understanding the action instead of shortcuts and memorization. Every level of math teaches you the fully broken down method first and then gives you the quicker method after you (hopefully) understand why you can skip the steps you can skip. It's really not that difficult to see how breaking addition down to remainders and 5's,10's,100's, etc is beneficial.
My first grader doesn't get it conceptually, probably because she was taught basic facts a different way. There's no way in hell my third grader, who is excellent at math, can already do long division, can do this silly crap my first grader is doing. At some point I'll have to scan in these full page instruction and helper sheets that come with each assignment.
Luckily they haven't changed how kids read, still teaching fake history though. My third grader had to "clip down" for talking crap on Christopher Columbus.
