"Accounting should be more important than algebra"

This way of thinking terrifies me. When we start educating our population to be mindless number crunchers rather than creative problem solvers, we will seal the fate of cultural and economic demise.

Fluency with words and numbers are the most important assets a person can possess. More is better. Our educational system should emphasize these even at the expense of others if necessary. No one can survive, much less prosper without a solid base of math and language. The nation will not prosper without them.

The schools should mandate a basic functional class teaching students budgeting, etc. I know in the past they had a practical law class, why not a practical existence class. This would teach them not to live beyond their means or get too much credit they can't pay for.

I don't even know what you're talking about here. Accounting? Medical billing? I thought kids in high school studied algebra, geometry, and calculus, like I did. What you're talking about is job training, not mathematics. And no, I don't think job training is the mission of our schools. Their mission is education.

If the bottom line of what this idea means is that kids coming out of high school have marketable skills, then my thought is we should better promote and utilize the vocational schools we already have. We should stop pushing every kid towards college and recognize that many of them will be happier and more productive if they are able to learn marketable skills that they have an aptitude in. Many of the jobs in the original suggestion require a whole lot more education and experience than high school can ever provide (accounting, project management, medical billing, marketing). So I'd change this idea to better promote and utilize our existing vocational schools so kids coming out of high school that are not planning on college can graduate with a marketable skill. My daughter did just that.