what is high school for

I'm not sure, really. My dad always told me that you don't go to college to get a better job, but you go to college to learn how to learn, so I would assume that high school would then be the same thing with less independence and individuality. Learning to learn is a great skill to have in the real world, but if you assume that high school is meant to prepare people for the real world then there's immediately a massive gap where real world things would be taught, and it seems like it would make more sense to prepare students for the literal things they will encounter instead of hoping to make them somewhat capable of possibly figuring it out on their own when they're thrust into it. More likely, high school is meant to exist as an arbitrary filter. It surely didn't start that way, but I'd say that the left over design is perfect for certifying people as capable of endless, repetitive, uninteresting work, and perfect for most jobs. It's hard to get many jobs without completing high school.