[hackinthebochs]

At one point a factory job would have been considered a good job. In modern times, they're on the low end. What counts as a "good job" is relative to the current standards of living and so you can't naively compare across timescales.

[throwawaygh]

Yes, agreed. And our high schools evolved to prepare students for those good factory jobs. Now that those factory jobs aren't good, maybe our high schools should also evolve.

But the point is that we can't do away with K-12 schooling. Subsistence farming was, is, and will be a bad job.