In my lifetime school stopped being about teaching life skills and started being about college prep. I never had home ec, wood shop, auto shop, any life skill class. Hell even drivers ed was privatized in my town. I understand that these programs are expensive to keep running but that slack was not picked up by other community resources like community colleges. (theres also a lot to be said about the stigmatization of community college and adult education courses)

The decline in public funding of education and public transit in my lifetime have gotten us to this point