In terms of morality you may be correct, but if the child in the article could skip some rote memorisation or other busy work for an extra hour or two of sleep I would bet on her learning "more" at school.
The problem with that is that, in society currently, your grades are what matter -- at least if you want a normal job at a normal company.
To get a job, you have to have a college degree and a good GPA. To get that, you have to get good grades in college -- which means doing the homework and taking the tests. To even get into a decent college you have to have a good GPA in high school -- which, again, means doing the homework and taking the tests. Most companies don't care if you actually have the skillset, or if any of those homework assignments actually taught you anything, you need the credentials to get in the door to show it.
Grades aren't as big of a deal if you're going to be your own boss or start a business or found a startup, but in typical corporate America it's the end-all-be-all until you've got years of experience to show instead.
Does anybody really care about your GPA when applying for jobs? Resumes are filtered by many random criteria, but I've never seen grades being one of them - most jobs that require a degree won't particularly care about what you majored in, they want someone who can provably do the job - so experience matters, connections matter and can replace experience; knowledge and skills matter, but grades? Not really.
I guess we in technology have some immunity to that. I work with musicians, carpenters, and yes rocket scientists. Not all got good grades, not even the best ones.
