It's sad how many people think that math is arithmetic, and that if we let kids use computers or calculators then they're not "doing math". Not just the general public but PTA leaders, school board members, and school administrators.
I live in a relatively wealthy school district in Ohio where the schools generally are well-regarded. Last year, I went to the schools "parents math night". I had expected to be exasperated by, you know, those idiots who will be teaching my children (my older son is entering first grade this fall). However, I ended up impressed with the teachers and disappointed by the parents in attendance. The school had chosen the "Connected Math" curricula (connectedmath.msu.edu) for its middle school math program, and some parents were outraged that Little Johnny wasn't learning long division (or whatever). Their arguments could be summed up as, "Well, that's not the way we learned it." I angered the other parents by playing a bit dumb and asking for a short description of the curriculum. Then, I stated loudly that it "sounded delightful." The teachers barely contain their smiles. I ordered a couple of the books in used form from Amazon to see for myself, and I think I would have found the exercises fun as a middle schooler. I really wanted to ask the parents doing the complaining, "Don't you love your children? You pay more for a house just because it's in this school district, and then you lobby to dumb-down the math curriculum?"
The problem is that the textbooks are teaching calculation. So in this instance "doing math" is calculating some equation. Solve some equation is easier to write in a textbook than an unambiguous word problem that a grad student needs to solve and put the answers in the back of the book and in the teachers solution manual. Not to mention that the math teachers are not always the best.