A far better example would have been trigonometry, or the quadratic formula, or the belligerents of the war of 1812. All of them fascinating subjects, but unlike, say, arithmetic, or compound interest, or a basic understanding of your country's legal system, they are not critical to survival in the modern world. Not to mention that thanks to teach-to-the-standardized-test, students are are criminally underserved in their exposure to them.

I think what most people would define as the "Common Core" of education should be greatly reduced. Instead of keeping students busy by teaching only the very basics of a topic (Oftentimes these basics are also wrong - precisely because there isn't time to dive into the nuances), and then testing them on the memorization of what ends up being largely pointless trivia, we should be taking that time, and push them towards deeper, focused study of subjects that interest them.

If you want to become an engineer, the standard K-12 mathematical education will suit you poorly. If you want to become a photographer, it will also suit you poorly, for entirely different reasons.