From your "starting point" video summary:
He has taught at major research institutions and small liberal arts colleges, and his been active in education reform, developing and implementing an elective Bible course that is currently available for public high school students in Texas.
You are kidding right? I watched parts of that nonsense and it's entirely propaganda for anti-common core, conspiratard conservative should-be-home-schooling douchebags that need their religious views justified by applying them to the public educational system, trying to infect every facet of historical context with religiosity regardless of factual truths. Common core is probably just too hard for willfully ignorant people to adapt too. I think a lot of it is stupid, but I'm not an educator and don't devote my time to research on the topic.
The example of 'Roman math' was a case of not-following-the-directions so an answer was marked wrong. Part of the purpose of the boxes is to teach the material in a functional manner that allows for better visualization of how to develop equations and functions, at the end of the day, these kids will grow up to become the next computer scientists, since everything is computer based now. They need this stuff, even if it's the 'long' way of problem solving and can be done quicker (that's another lesson that comes after you get the fundamentals down).
There was already a monopoly for textbooks. Sometimes it seems that Texas is just mad that they are no longer a predominate driving force behind textbooks (and good riddance, with their succumbing to religious indoctrination as a part of curriculum in their educational mandates).
You are the one spreading propaganda.