The public school curriculum today was built around a need for literate men who could do arithmetic working in factories from the 1920s and on. That is why the core "skills" of public education are mastery of basic reading and math.
On one hand, reading and math are pretty fundamental to most of the world today. On the other, the original designs of curriculum were to repeat those two concepts for 12 years until everyone who graduated was certainly capable of them to insure any adult was a capable factory drone. Throw in some biased national history in social studies to create some cult patriotism and basic science so they don't blow up half the workplace floor by mixing the wrong chemicals and so they have a basic idea of how things move and that was it.
The average high schooler keeps graduating more and more capable of memorizing words and regurgitating them on fill in the blank tests. They are getting better, on average, at more advanced mathematics like algebra. It turns out generations of kids capable of doing math homework didn't dramatically improve the innovative potential of east Asian countries that focused hugely on that from the 80s and on. Japans school system is one of the most rigorous in the world, you have to pass entrance exams just for high school and getting into any university is itself often a several-year long job. But Japans economy is not seeing huge economic growth for all that laser focus on classical lecture and memorized testing.
And even then the current k-12 system does not serve those who aren't as quick to pickup on these memorization concepts and fundamentals for reading and math. Huge numbers of kids are "forgotten" in the public school system and are pushed through despite being borderline illiterate. Because grades are age based and not ability based, if you are either too fast or too slow at memorizing the material instructed at you public school will be an awful experience.
> It is about the practical use of information acquired in public school.
Primary and secondary school educations' purpose it not meant to have any practical use; that's specialization.
A productive sytem will have, as post-secondary options, a more academic education (university), and professional schools.
Some countries have hybrid secondary education options, and that's an acceptable alternative.
If a country doesn't give the options above, then there is a serious problem, but to orient public school towards practical matters is missing the point of basic education.
By the way, there are accountants for doing taxes.
In Illinois there is a business class that is required to graduate that requires you to complete your own taxes. I can't comment if you can truly pass the class with out knowing how to do your taxes but I certainly tell you they taught us how to if you paid attention.
Most of my peers decided not to take it.
You are so ignorant about the curriculum that it is embarrassing. I would wager you have nothing to do with a school except drive past one at too high a speed.
The "Public University Core" in Texas is, by and large, the 2nd-level-advanced version of the basic high school graduation requirements. Those requirements aren't much more strenuous than "can do math with variables" and "understand compound sentences" and "pass a test on acid, base, solution, and precipitates." The school district where I taught didn't even have a senior-level financial education course until the year after I left and that was well into the 2000s. (But, by George, you absolutely will take a course in Texas History wherein you learn not to forget the Alamo and how Texans are fiercely independent unlike every other state in the Union and how we were technically an independent country and, depending on the teacher, we just might be one again.)
Yes, it's a gross generalization but it is true, at least in my experience, that the curricula we are teaching our kids isn't dynamic or flexible enough to keep up with modern society.
Exactly so. There are some who glide into the industries in our school systems but it may be that either they are "truly exceptional," were under the tutelage of a knowledgeable adult who could steer them towards certain success, or lucked into happiness.
You may also consider social stratification around Ivy Leagues and Public Research Universities as a side-effect of a lack of a Useful School. People cannot rely upon the reputation of a school and instead resort to a set of predatory heuristics about tuition and the age of the institution.
In a world where the public school system prepares, by grade 12, a legally-literate scholar with a set of vocational skills, the University (It helps to think of it as One University, from which emanates the total knowledge of humankind) assumes a role of governance over the high schools (colleges) and grade schools, which are the true preparatory apparatus of the adult mind.