Common Core: Easy Math made Difficult!

Hemant Mehta's defense of common core math acrobatics , along with the mind-numbing pic below, have recently gone viral.  The picture shows how subtraction was performed "traditionally," and how students are being taught this basic operation under Common Core:

This headache-inducing photo may be enough to make you want to home-school your children!  But never fear!  Mehta assures us this second, drawn out method is superior to the first because "if I ask students to explain why it works, they'd have a really hard time explaining it to me."  Whereas the second "new" way, just in case your brain melted trying to figure it out, encourages students to "instead, count up from 12 to an "easier' number like 15.  (You've gone up 3).  Then, go up to 20. (You've gone another 5).  Then jump to 30.  (Another 10).  Then, finally, to 32.  (Another 2.)"

Ignore that this method takes a basic, two step math problem and mutates it into five steps, which is three more potential places for a kid to make an error and screw the whole thing up.  What's disturbing about this is WHY it's being taught this way in the first place.  Mehta himself states that the Common Core-endorsed way is so kids can supposedly explain why 32-12 = 20.  There is no WHY there!  32-12 = 20 because it DOES.  And if you really think about it, the second version doesn't really explain why either.  Why does 12+3 = 15?  The problem doesn't say.  But, if we leave all that well enough alone, what will kids fill in on their standardized tests when asked to explain their computations?  Many state tests include several open-ended math questions in which students are required not only to solve problems but explain their figures and reasoning.  Here we see yet another example of education being twisted by state testing.  The "new way" above has been designed to guarantee high test scores and keep the state off the schools' backs.  I feel sorry for both the students who have to learn this way and the teachers who have to act like it makes sense and defend it to parents!