Is It Time to Reset the Pre-K–12 Curriculum?

I was very fortunate to graduate in 1999 from The Wheatley School in Old Westbury, New York.

Wheatley was- and remains- the kind of public high school parents seek out when deciding where to raise a family. In fact, shortly before I graduated, Wheatley received an extraordinary distinction: Newsweek ranked it the #1 public high school in the country in its March 30, 1998 issue.

There is an interesting footnote to that honor. The ranking was based on educator and journalist Jay Mathews’s “Challenge Index,” which emphasized participation in Advanced Placement and similar college-level examinations relative to the number of graduating seniors.

More than a quarter century later, I live in the same school district with my own children.

And, like probably too many parents in the age of Zillow, GreatSchools, U.S. News and endless online rankings, I started worrying.

Wheatley no longer occupies that #1 national position. Had something changed? Was I really raising my children in the best place? Should we be living in another Long Island school district?

I even asked ChatGPT to conduct a retrospective analysis of Wheatley and a forward-looking comparison with other districts based on what matters to my family.

The conclusion was reassuring. East Williston remains, at minimum, among the strongest choices for what I want for my children.

Whew.

Or is it?

Because the exercise eventually led me to a much more interesting question:

What if we are measuring the wrong things when we decide what makes a school great?

College readiness and life readiness aren’t the same thing

Schools like Wheatley are exceptionally good at preparing children for the traditional academic pathway.

Take challenging classes.

Get good grades.

Take AP courses.

Build an impressive extracurricular résumé.

Attend a good college.

Earn a degree.

Begin a professional career.

For generations, that formula provided a powerful route to economic mobility.

And for many students, it still does.

But somewhere along the way, particularly in affluent and academically competitive communities, college preparation seems to have become synonymous with preparation for adulthood.

They aren’t the same thing.

A student can graduate knowing calculus but not know how to file a tax return.

A student can analyze Shakespeare but not understand a mortgage.

A student can write an excellent research paper but not know how to prepare ten inexpensive and reasonably healthy meals.

A student can pass chemistry but have no idea what to do when a toilet won’t stop running.

A student can graduate near the top of the class without understanding credit scores, insurance, compound interest, business formation or whether borrowing $200,000 for a particular college degree represents a sensible investment.

None of those are obscure vocational skills.

They are adulthood.

Bring back home economics- but reinvent it

“Home economics” sounds like something from another era.

Perhaps that is part of the problem.

Instead of allowing the subject to disappear, we should have modernized it.

Every student should leave high school knowing how to cook basic meals, shop intelligently for groceries, understand nutrition labels, clean a home, do laundry, sew on a button, unclog a drain, shut off the water during an emergency and perform simple household repairs.

Maybe our modern solution is shopping at Trader Joe’s for food that merely needs to be heated and hiring someone else to clean the house.

There is nothing wrong with either.

But outsourcing basic life functions should be a choice—not the consequence of never learning how to perform them.

A reinvented home-economics curriculum could go considerably further.

How does a lease work?

What does renters insurance actually cover?

What does homeowners insurance cover?

How do you compare contractor estimates?

When should you attempt a repair yourself and when should you call a professional?

How do utilities work?

How do you recognize when someone selling you a product or service may be taking advantage of you?

That isn’t the home economics of 1960.

It is Life Management 101.

Reinvent shop class, too

The traditional shop and automotive programs have also been crowded out in many college-oriented schools.

Cars certainly have become more complicated. Increasingly, they are computers on wheels. Electric vehicles will change maintenance even further.

But that doesn’t eliminate the usefulness of understanding machines.

Students don’t need to rebuild an engine.

They should know what to do with a flat tire.

They should know how to use a tire-inflation or sealant kit, change windshield wipers, check tire pressure, replace an air or cabin filter, understand the purpose of basic fluids and recognize common dashboard warnings.

Changing a taillight assembly or replacing a damaged bolt-on body component isn’t beyond the capability of many teenagers, either.

More importantly, students should become comfortable using tools and diagnosing problems.

Expand the course beyond automobiles.

Give students exposure to plumbing, electrical systems, carpentry, HVAC, electronics and construction.

They don’t have to become experts.

They should understand how the physical world around them works.

Stop treating skilled trades as Plan B

This leads to a cultural problem that may be particularly pronounced in academically successful communities.

College isn’t always presented as one path.

It becomes the path.

A talented student should be exposed to what it actually means to become an electrician, plumber, HVAC technician, firefighter, contractor, network technician, software developer or entrepreneur.

And we should show students the economics rather than relying on stereotypes.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that electricians earned a median $63,190 in 2025, with the highest-paid 10% earning more than $108,000. Employment is projected to grow 9% between 2025 and 2035, with roughly 72,700 openings annually.

Plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters had a median wage of $63,800, with the highest-paid 10% exceeding $108,000, and employment is projected to grow 7%.

Both occupations commonly have apprenticeship pathways.

That doesn’t make becoming an electrician “better” than earning an engineering degree.

It means both deserve to appear on the menu.

A 17-year-old should be able to compare:

Path A: Four years at a university, tuition and living expenses, possible student debt, followed by a particular starting salary.

Path B: SUNY or another public university.

Path C: Community college followed by transfer.

Path D: Apprenticeship or technical training, earning money while developing a marketable skill.

Path E: Military or public service.

Path F: Employment combined with industry certifications.

Path G: Entrepreneurship.

Then let an educated student make an educated decision.

Make every college pass an ROI test

Higher education should not be exempt from the cost-benefit analysis we apply to virtually every other major investment.

College Board reports that for 2025–26, average published tuition and fees are about $11,950 at public four-year institutions for in-state students and $45,000 at private nonprofit four-year institutions.

Once housing, food, books, transportation and other expenses are included, the average published annual student budget at a private nonprofit four-year institution reaches about $65,470.

That is an average.

At some institutions, the sticker price is now dramatically higher.

There is an important caveat: sticker price isn’t necessarily what families pay. Financial aid can reduce the actual cost considerably. College Board estimates average net tuition and fees for first-time full-time students at private nonprofit institutions at $16,910 in 2025–26 after grant aid.

That distinction should itself become part of high-school education.

Teach students to compare:

Sticker price.

Net price.

Grants.

Scholarships.

Loans.

Expected earnings.

Opportunity cost.

Debt service.

And likely return on investment.

If you’re contemplating an investment potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, asking about ROI isn’t anti-education.

It’s basic financial literacy.

Teach taxes before trigonometry ends

Death and taxes remain remarkably reliable features of adulthood.

Yet generations of students have graduated without ever completing a tax return.

That should be almost unimaginable.

Fortunately, policymakers are beginning to recognize the gap. As of 2026, the Council for Economic Education reports that 39 states require personal-finance coursework for high-school graduation.

New York has also moved substantially in this direction. In March 2026, the Board of Regents permanently adopted regulations requiring personal-finance instruction across K–12, with instruction required by the end of grades 4, 8 and 12.

That’s progress.

But financial education should be intensely practical.

Give a 16-year-old a fictional W-2 and have the student prepare a tax return.

Give students a $75,000 salary and ask them to build a budget.

Then introduce reality.

Federal income tax.

New York income tax.

Social Security and Medicare.

Health insurance.

Rent.

Transportation.

Food.

Utilities.

Childcare.

Student loans.

Retirement contributions.

Suddenly “$75,000 a year” means something very different.

Then reverse the assignment.

Tell students to design the lifestyle they want at age 30.

Where do you want to live?

House or apartment?

Children?

Car?

Travel?

What does that life cost?

Now calculate the income required to support it.

That may be one of the most consequential mathematics assignments a student ever completes.

Every teenager should start a business- even if it’s imaginary

Entrepreneurship should also be part of basic education.

Most students graduate without knowing the practical difference between a sole proprietorship, LLC and corporation.

Why?

Have every student develop a hypothetical business.

Choose a legal structure.

Learn what an EIN is.

Understand what is involved in opening a business bank account.

Create a basic business plan.

Develop invoices.

Learn accounts receivable and accounts payable.

Create a rudimentary income statement.

Understand cash flow.

Learn what an SBA loan is.

Discuss insurance.

Learn how payroll works.

Price a product.

Calculate gross margin.

Market it.

Try to sell something.

Some students may discover they love entrepreneurship.

Most won’t become entrepreneurs.

That’s fine.

Someone who understands how a business generates revenue, controls expenses and earns a profit will probably be a more capable employee, manager, consumer and investor anyway.

AI makes all of this more urgent

Then there is artificial intelligence.

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, based on input from more than 1,000 employers representing over 14 million workers, identifies technological change—particularly AI and information-processing technologies—as one of the major forces reshaping employment through 2030.

AI can already draft documents, analyze datasets, generate software, create images, summarize research and automate portions of professional work that once required substantial human labor.

That doesn’t make education less important.

It changes what being educated means.

When information is scarce, memorizing information is enormously valuable.

When information is effectively unlimited, judgment becomes enormously valuable.

Can you ask the right question?

Can you determine whether the answer is credible?

Can you recognize when AI is wrong?

Can you test its conclusion?

Can you combine information from multiple disciplines?

Can you communicate with another human being?

Can you negotiate?

Can you persuade?

Can you build something?

Can you repair something?

Can you lead people?

Can you make a decision when there isn’t one obviously correct answer?

Those skills become increasingly important in an AI-rich economy.

College isn’t dying- and that’s not my argument

It would be easy to turn this argument into “college is obsolete.”

I don’t believe that.

In fact, National Student Clearinghouse data show undergraduate enrollment increased another 1% in spring 2026, reaching total postsecondary enrollment of approximately 18.6 million.

Millions of Americans continue to see value in higher education.

So do I.

I earned multiple graduate degrees myself, and education has played an enormous role in my career and intellectual development.

The argument isn’t college versus no college.

It is choice versus default.

College should be one exceptionally important pathway within a much larger educational ecosystem.

And the job of K–12 education should be to prepare students intelligently for all of those pathways.

A new Pre-K–12 Life and Career Core

I wouldn’t throw away the traditional curriculum.

I’d add a second core curriculum alongside it.

Call it the Life and Career Core.

It would begin in elementary school and become progressively more sophisticated.

Elementary school

Students learn basic cooking, nutrition, saving versus spending, simple budgeting, household responsibilities, first aid, basic tools, digital safety and how everyday machines work.

Middle school

Students begin banking, investing, compound interest, basic coding, AI literacy, entrepreneurship, home repair, cooking, career exploration and practical consumer mathematics.

Every student should begin encountering careers requiring four-year degrees and careers that don’t.

High school

Now make it real.

Taxes.

Credit.

Insurance.

Investing.

Retirement accounts.

Mortgages.

Student loans.

Leases.

Contracts.

Employment law basics.

Business formation.

Entrepreneurship.

AI.

Automotive maintenance.

Home maintenance.

Basic plumbing.

Basic electrical work.

First aid and CPR.

Negotiating a salary.

Reading an employee-benefits package.

Evaluating a college financial-aid offer.

Every student should graduate having seriously investigated at least three postsecondary pathways: college, skilled/technical employment and entrepreneurship/direct employment.

And perhaps graduation should include a practical capstone.

Here is a salary.

Here is an apartment.

Here is a car.

Here is health insurance.

Here are your taxes.

Here is a broken appliance.

Here is a credit-card offer.

Here is a college loan.

Here is an investment opportunity.

Here is an AI-generated answer that contains three errors.

Navigate adulthood.

Maybe we need a different definition of a great school

Which brings me back to Wheatley.

I still care enormously about academic rigor.

I want my children surrounded by smart, motivated classmates and talented teachers.

I want them reading difficult books.

I want them studying science.

I want them understanding history.

I want them learning mathematics far beyond what they’ll probably use in everyday life because mathematics teaches disciplined thinking.

And if they aspire to attend an outstanding university, I want their school to prepare them exceptionally well.

But at 45, my definition of educational excellence is different from what it was when I graduated from Wheatley at 18.

The best high school shouldn’t merely produce students capable of getting into excellent colleges.

It should produce capable adults.

Adults who can think.

Adults who can communicate.

Adults who understand money.

Adults who can cook.

Adults who aren’t helpless when something breaks.

Adults who understand technology without becoming dependent upon it.

Adults who recognize multiple paths toward economic success.

Adults who can start businesses as well as work for them.

Adults who understand when borrowing money represents an investment and when it is simply expensive debt.

Adults who can distinguish price from value.

Adults who know how to learn something they were never formally taught.

And, perhaps most importantly, adults capable of adapting to careers and technologies that their teachers—and their parents—cannot yet predict.

When Wheatley was ranked #1 in America in 1998, the ranking largely reflected participation in advanced academic examinations.

That made sense for its time.

But nearly three decades later, perhaps the question parents like me should be asking isn’t:

“Where does my child’s high school rank?”

It is:

“If my child spends thirteen years in this school system, how prepared will he or she be for the fifty or sixty years that come afterward?”

And if our school rankings can’t answer that question, perhaps it isn’t only the curriculum that needs to change.

Maybe our entire definition of educational excellence does, too.