Yeah. I pulled my kid out of school in 6th grade to homeschool. I tutored her in times tables and mental math in the lower grades but it never stuck because the schools (even private schools!) pushed calculator use.
I took away her calculator and had her spend almost a year on arithmetic drills, fractions, decimals and the like - all with no recourse to a calculator.
She then went right into algebra and did just fine - this kid who had always done poorly in math had progressed successfully to algebra in 7th grade because her basic skills were functioning.
Calculators before algebra are just crippling kids. If you have to work hard to do basic math, there is no room left over for higher level thought.
It's so obvious, yet so many ignore it.