A Few Quick Questions About the Education of Youth Circa 2009

A recent post of Annie's got me thinking: do educators still make it a habit of forcing students to recite poetry in the classroom, before the students' peers? (I had to memorize and recite a few poems in my day, my day being the not-exactly-distant-or-sepia-tinted 1990s.) Is there a pedagogically sturdy reason for requiring students to get some poetry by heart, or is this practice now considered cruel and unusual, like the use of red ink and dunce caps? In short, should students be made to memorize and recite poetry?