This got me thinking - I wonder how much of that comes down to mundane reasons like budgets, rather than pedagogy. Change costs money and most schools are slow moving. For example, I suspect that the content of secondary school mathematics have changed little in generations, but the content of practical lessons in cooking, vehicle maintenance, finances, programming, etc. changes much faster.

I want to throw out another angle that I think is relevant:

The curriculum broadly is determined by the school board.

The school board tends to be made up of more "well off" people.

They will prioritize the types of classes that they took to get them where they are.

If you are on the school board, you are most likely not a house wife, not a mechanic, not a seamstress, etc.

So you get a prioritization on classes that lead you down the "four year degree, rise to management" type of life.

A lot comes down to budget I think. Schools are judged mainly on standardized testing scores and funds will be allocated to ensure optimization of that metric.

Schools mainly get funded through local property taxes. If you compare curriculum in towns that are generally middle and upper middle class with towns that have a larger lower middle class population you’ll probably see different curriculum. More AP classes, electives, life planning, etc.

The town I live in has pretty high taxes but it’s mainly to fund the local school system which ranks high. Just about everyone with kids uses the public school system because of this and it’s a big selling point to new residents home-shopping.

But we pay for it.