The teaching of critical thinking is not the only value we have. As a society we value having well-rounded children. Personally at a minimum I would like the education system to teach all of the following to students: enough history to understand the broad scope of civilization, the political system and recent history of their region and country, geography, their primary language, the basics of a secondary language, basic first aid, math and science. Note that this is a minimum, and I hope that students learn more than this.

This leaves a lot of latitude. Within each area you have choices to make. But no matter what you're going to be teaching kids about a lot of things that they don't necessarily have an interest in.