We are not teaching actual solving skills because it's hard to check for them. You can't just give a new problem to a bunch of kids and expect them to yield a

We are not teaching actual solving skills because it's hard to check for them. You can't just give a new problem to a bunch of kids and expect them to yield a measurable result. Some may be already familiar with this kind of problems, other may be only able to get ideas when bouncing them against other kids. It's a mess. Solving a hundred of similar questions? That gives you real performance score - how children concentrate under stress while doing boring repetitive tasks. Grading is evil.