I cannot agree enough with you on that. Mostly it felt to me when I was in high school that it was such a repetitive rote/forced way of learning.
Which disgusts me these days especially when I am insanely passionate about learning new things and ideas.
So by the time they hit Calculus and Shakespeare, they're in year 11 of their time in a velvet jail and have learned to very adequately mimic the bizarre squawking the guards insist is requisite for passage to The Island.
What they have not done is mathematics or reading in any real sense.