"As a recently retired secondary school teacher I have noted that, especially in the last decade, the Ministry of Education and the administrators of local school boards have been pushing more and more to manipulate core curriculum to the needs -or the imagined needs- of the job market."

I'm a recent graduate of the secondary school system, and I beg to disagree-if anything, Ontario's education system is a catastrophic failure in this regard. However, I believe they SHOULD focus their attention on preparing students for the workforce-after all, you're going to need a job, and if you remembered some industry-specific courses from high school which you enjoyed then it makes choosing a field practically child's play. Of course, it would be great if students wanted to learn about Mozart and Plato. However, they have decades of their life to pursue this, provided they have the necessary tuition money. And that comes through a well-paying job.