More than one right answer, more than one right method. While those tasks make sense for 5th graders, kindergartners—and even preschoolers—can learn math through problem solving, Boaler said.

For the past year, Walker has sometimes outsourced this “grunt work,” as she described it, to ChatGPT. She’s asked it to make flashcards, create two-step word problems for Algebra 1 classes ...