I'm supportive of this idea, but I wonder if people (including me) who make proposals such as "let's scrap the primary school curriculum and fill it with learning that's actually useful" underestimate the amount of useful things that they've learned in primary school, because they no longer remember the origins of that knowledge and have filed it under "those obvious things that everyone knows".
Good point, but I am not sure one way or the other. Compare Sargon of Akkad vs. Julius Caesar. I don't think we spent more time in school on one than the other. I think people know about Caesar because he has permeated into the culture. I'm not sure how many of the impressive interesting things all of us know are because of school versus because of cultural exposure.
From Julian Sanchez, a brilliant idea unlikely to be implemented: