I loathe standardized testing and Common Core for this reason. Both my kids have attention deficits and lower than average working memory, my son especially. Which means neither does well on rote memorization and regurgitation. I find that applied math, however, has been excellent for us to reinforce concepts I am trying to teach. We're not just learning these concepts, we're immediately using them. Fractions are inherently more interesting when being baked into cookies.