Poor schools have a lot of problems like poor materials (my brother's history text book had serious editing errors like "Abraham Lincoln was black.") and problems attracting good teachers. The problem seems to be bad enough that they, given the scores handed in, are even to the level of teaching for the tests. I don't see any real hope until parents are allowed to move the tuition money the state pays the schools to the school of their choice. Innovation is hard without choice.
That particular exercise is a way of practicing the connections between verbalization, logical reasoning about the future, and emotional desires. It sounds like an excellent way to help the top half of the IQ bell curve to work on projects bigger than will fit in their head overnight.
As to wasted time, it should not take more than a few minutes a day, a bargain compared to the time spent on the party indoctrination in history and social studies.
To be honest, it sounds just as insane—possibly more—that children have to do this kind of thing. There were fewer assessment exercises of this sort when I was in school, albeit appreciably more than my parents had to contend with. The main lesson I took away from them was to avoid, wherever possible, any job or career where I'd have to waste everyone's time pursuing such ridiculous make-work.
I worry that the more we force this stuff on children from an early age, the more they will take it to be the normal (de jure, not de facto) state of affairs rather than an aberration stemming from the awful tendency to value managerial gestures over productive work.