Fuck AI

No, that wouldn't actually provide a baseline understanding of a variety of topics. Things like media literacy can only be taught by reading and watching and analyzing a wide range of things, and that takes several years of just one general thing. Basic biology, enough to understand fundamental things like how/why vaccines work or the importance of diet and exercise also builds on many years of learning. Math should be confidently understood at least through algebra in order navigate taxes, bills, budgeting, and other legally important but boring situations.

A lot of stuff doesn't feel important while you're learning about it and partially that's just teachers doing a bad job contextualizing the lessons but yes many topics just aren't intrinsically interesting to everybody. It's still good to have a robust base of understanding because that makes tangentially related things easier to parse.

And that's not even getting into "electives" that would be super useful for most people if they had the time, things like cooking and shop class so folks are more self-reliant, or music or art or crafting because hobbies can also be menaly stimulating and fulfilling, or better or more varied PE types because it's also important to develop some decent health habits early in life. In a perfect world a lot of that would be introduced or reinforced at home by family and friends and neighbors, but that's not the world we have.