>>lewisf+(OP)
I am always surprised in hearing that American students need a programmable, graphing calculator. In most of Asia such is not required, only a much cheaper 'scientfic' calculator, even for graduate courses in science and engineering.
Some disciplines even in sciences/engineering, for example Computer Science, does not require any sort of calculator usually.
>>billfr+Od
It's a relatively recent development. I majored in physics, and made it through differential equations in the 1990s without one. It's a requirement for my daughter's high school math class.
>>harold+We
It does does raise the question. Why do American highschoolers need it, and why not them in the rest of the world. Why saddle students and parents with an additional 100$+ expense, when very possibly it isn't strictly pedagogically necessary.
>>billfr+Bh
For the most part "graphing calculator" seems to be a catch all term for "scientific calculator with the features we need" in that little actual graphing is done. But I have seen problems in my son's "Algebra 2" class that require plotting polynomials on the calculator then describing their roots, shape etc. As a way to build intuition about the geometric interpretation of functions, that seems like a reasonable approach although Wolfram alpha would do a decent job too.