FWIW, in Germany and most of the civilized world, most people do not even enroll in academic high school. At age 14 you are sifted either into trade school or an academic school. Germany only (used to) send about 6% of their kids to academic high school (Gymnasium), whence they almost all went on to University. The numbers are about the same for Japan. Somehow they manage to maintain modern industrial societies. My wife used to work a local middle school that had Metco (Boston inner city) kids bussed in. They were somewhat disruptive in academic classes, but since they were not a critical mass it was manageable. However, they shone in shop class, they loved working with their hands. I’m not saying they were incapable of academic achievement, but maybe somewhat discouraged, especially since they were competing with kids half of whose parents were engineers, doctors or lawyers.
Sending these poor kids to an academic high school is a waste of everyone’s time. Teach them to so something they love and teach them well. They’ll take pride in their accomplishments and be able to make a living for the rest of their lives. And they’ll probably even learn a lot more math, to boot!
You’re right. My favorite movie line is from Judge Smails in Caddyshack. “The world needs ditch diggers, too.” Not everyone is or will ever be college material. But we all need a skill or trade. We need mechanics, home repair men, construction workers, etc. I vote for a two-tiered set of schools, one is college-prepartory and the other more of a trade school. My wife insists that we need to go back to having all male/female schools and that would solve much of the problem.