I'm interested when I see this critique, because I definitely agree with you, but I also see a strong bias against new pedagogical approaches like Common Core math that focus more on teaching concepts like numerical composability and less on memorization and recitation. Personally, as someone whose mental map of how math works lines up much more with the CC standards, I wish I had been taught that way; the memorization & recitation approach fell apart for me when I reached higher level math classes.