It's been my experience that there is knowledge that can only be taught in high school for some subjects. Not because the information is inherently specific to high schoolers but because high school is the only place that allows for the leisurely-enough pace to teach the knowledge.
For example, I learned Pascal as a first language. Outside of high school, no one has the time to learn a dead language for the few cool ideas it has but in high school, it provides indispensable background for a lot of concepts that come later (e.g. BEGIN/END being written out to teach you how much that sucks so that you understand why we use {} in every other language, the := operator making far more sense than the = operator, and other little tidbits).
The same logic applies (for me) to Latin, cooking classes, and Calculus. Ironically, I find that music classes have become so subsumed by the struggle to justify their funding that HS music brushes off non-essential skills just as shamelessly as university music does.
For example, I learned Pascal as a first language. Outside of high school, no one has the time to learn a dead language for the few cool ideas it has but in high school, it provides indispensable background for a lot of concepts that come later (e.g. BEGIN/END being written out to teach you how much that sucks so that you understand why we use {} in every other language, the := operator making far more sense than the = operator, and other little tidbits).
The same logic applies (for me) to Latin, cooking classes, and Calculus. Ironically, I find that music classes have become so subsumed by the struggle to justify their funding that HS music brushes off non-essential skills just as shamelessly as university music does.