Sir Tony Robinson (the narrator of Time Team) is in the news recently (Guardian) concerning the removal of archaeology and certain other subjects from the A-Level GCE exams in Britain.
For all intents and purposes, the British GCE is the college entrance equivalent of the SAT or ACT in the United States, also required for a high school diploma.
This follows a general trend in the West to gouge out everything that isn't one of two or three core subjects, but 'reading' may be too controversial or discriminatory to last much longer itself. Much of this is being driven by institutional reaction to social change and trends, but there is also modern pedagogical cancer that views learning as a statistical science; achieve the most economical effort with minimal divergence in outcomes.
At one time adults taught and children learned with the goal of becoming roundly capable and independent citizens, maybe some would even become enlightened. Now it's all metric-based bullshit.
I guess barbarians don't need to know cursive, speaking, music, history or archaeology. We shouldn't challenge students. In a way, that makes sense.
In the United States, we have college entrance exams, plus advanced placement exams in particular subjects. If you take an advanced placement class, and then pass the exam, you get college credit, and don't have to take an introductory course. That being said, you don't need to take subject exams to be accepted by universities - it's just an extra thing to get you a head start in college. Of course, it turns into student taking as many advanced placement courses as they can stand to compete with schoolmates.
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