What Should People Learn?

Who decides that kids learn in K12?  How do they decide?

Oddly, this question is not that seriously asked or studied. I think it should be. Here's my starting point.

Everyone would agree that kids should learn to read, learn to do basic math, and learn enough science and social studies so that they understand the basics of their world.  This consensus is a good start and not something that I'm thinking needs to be revisited.  I'm also not asking the question of how best to teach reading and basic math.

The question that interests me is when students get past the basics, how much more should they learn?

Is there a point to learning advanced science and math which 97% of the people who learn it, will never use it again and forget it pretty much completely in the first few years after studying it?  This is a question that I think is worth asking.

Right now, to get into the competitive admission colleges in the US, high school students need to have taken chemistry, biology, physics, calculus, algebra 1, and algebra II. Let's start by just thinking about these advanced math classes. Starting in algebra I, the math focuses on exponents.  It's not just about solving for X, it's really about solving for X Squared.  Now X squared (and cubed and so on) is a vital concept for people studying mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, physics, and some types of economics. In fact, this entire advanced math sequence is only of use or interest to people in these fields. So the college professors would prefer that any student hoping to study in their field in college arrive already having a background in htis math. This means that the entire college-oriented high school US population needs to study all these advanced subjects even though over 95% of them will never encounter any of this higher math again in their life.  What could they learn if they didn't study all the esoteric math? HOw about basic statistics and probability so that when they are told by the medical professionals about the potential consequences, they ahve an academic grounding so they can understand the meaning of: "While there is a 10% chance of this being a false positive, an actual positive has a 75% mortality rate in the first six months unless this treatment is followed. The treatment does not have a 5% chance of having significant side effects. "