"Math" up through high school in the US, and through that freshman calculus course, is mostly about calculating the right answer to a problem. Math is a much bigger subject; calculations are a trivially small part of the whole.
On the other hand, "The much bigger and real tragedy of math education in the US is the very large percentage of kids who have been labeled as 'not good at math'" is also very true. And many of those people might not be good at calculations but would be fine with the rest of the subject.
"Math" up through high school in the US, and through that freshman calculus course, is mostly about calculating the right answer to a problem. Math is a much bigger subject; calculations are a trivially small part of the whole.
On the other hand, "The much bigger and real tragedy of math education in the US is the very large percentage of kids who have been labeled as 'not good at math'" is also very true. And many of those people might not be good at calculations but would be fine with the rest of the subject.