My wife and I put our kids into a private school starting a year ago, and this school does insist upon a good amount of rote memorization. They demand that the kids be able to do certain things without thinking; they don't want the memorization to be a replacement for being able to figure something out on demand, but rather want the child to be able to quickly and instinctively answer certain things, and to learn the discipline required to commit something to memory in this manner.
I love it.