Should high level liberal arts be mandatory in high school? (in the US)

"... there is almost no circumstance in every day life in which anyone who isn't a professional mathematician would need to know how to solve quartic equations. That said, we invest teaching time into it. The same goes for English, when is the last time you ever had to analyze a Shakespearean poem? (I'm assuming you aren't a Shakespearean scholar, in which case, oops)." Mastery of language is used all the time. The very fact that you know of Shakespearan sayings such as "A rose by any other name" and how they are commonly integrated into society is pretty solid as a fact. Ignorance of common sayings, common poets, commonly cited artists, and commonly projected stories is pretty bad and will leave you out in the cold looking ignorant really quickly in the adult world. "Not only are these kinds of subjects a waste of time, they are destructive. The resources appropriated to these subjects are not being appropriated to others. Think of the benefit to graduating high school students if we, for example, replaced Algebra 2 with a mandatory accounting class, and made algebra an elective class. They would be familiar with concepts of interest, how loans work, perhaps the core concepts behind the stock market, and things like that. The benefit would be huge." That wouldn't make sense since complex accounting requires higher level math than algebra 2. I understand however you are trying to say that there needs to be a more practical application but merging the two makes far more sense than replacing one with the other especially since Accounting is a lot more than math (http://smallbusiness.chron.com...). "Another benefit of making many of these classes electives would be a huge increase in the competency of the students graduating who took these classes..." This requires a citation. "Another benefit of this system is that it is very flexible to serious students' wishes as far as specificity. A student might want a career in, say, computer science. Being required to spend hundreds if not thousands of hours learning French is an insane waste of time. In this system, they could sign up for, say, advanced math, science, programming, and English..." This lowers general knowledge. (http://www.topuniversities.com...) for instance relating to languages you cannot ever "not" use them. It is never worthless to be able to further communicate. It increases your value exponentially for every language you learn. The same is true of any other skill (https://www.americanexpress.com...) with some being completely beyond the scope of expectation. Many people find that advanced English for instance gives them the eloquent edge needed to seal deals or that advanced math (http://www.ted.com...) can help expand how you think and make for a stronger analytical base. "In addition, the college screening process would be more accurate... A student applying to an engineering school who has taken nothing but art classes, but has gotten straight As should not be accepted over a student who has taken nothing but engineering classes, but gotten -As." This was long solved as most undergraduate programs have required classes to even enter. This is a non-issue. Paragraph #6 relates to vocational training which there are already vocational schools and school programs available and they are offered to HS students. It is not hidden information and there is no secret handshake. "The current system of education puts too much focus on information which is not useful in life after academia.", this ultimately is where you need to prove that any of the information above is truly worthless. I can think of many ways in business alone all of the skills you listed could come handy. While goal-oriented training is useful (that is training for a specific job) there is no reason to believe that a general level of education is harmful or wasteful that you've adequately provided.