[bee_rider]

What does modern manufacturing look like? Are you limited by a lack of people who can, like, use a screwdriver? Or by a lack of people who can use a CAD package?

I worry that kids might hear “not enough people in the trades” and work on their hammer swinging skills. But in the US at least, you can get through k-12 without learning basic intro math stuff, like linear algebra or calculus.

If that was the minimum, we could, I guess, handle basic applied math like intro differential equations in the first year of a 2-year degree, and then spend the second year figuring out how to ask the computer to solve those problems…

[nradov]

Never mind calculus. There are plenty of kids who graduate high school without the basic arithmetic and trigonometry skills necessary to be a good carpenter. The social promotion practice in primary and secondary schools has been a disaster.

[BeFlatXIII]

Social promotion is the expected outcome of rewarding schools for graduation rates.