i was baptized Greek Catholic, which meant i was confirmed simultaneously, so in 6th grade i had to sit out Confirmation, other than doing all the study prep stuff, in my Catholic grade school.
I agree - we had a teachers' meeting at my parish earlier this week, to look over the new curriculum. When the DRE asked for comments on the past year, I mentioned that one of my children's classes had parties on every conceivable date: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter ... That was not, I felt, the best use of limited instructional time.
If we're involved in parish religious education, we need to work toward making it as effective and efficient as possible ... but if the families are dropping the ball, it's just going to be dropped, and there's only so much the parish can do.