Improving high-school curriculums

How would you change high-school curricula to better prepare students for understanding common, but complex, situations (such as presidential polls, economic reports, business balance sheets, and science news)?  How would you teach skepticism and critical thinking?  Here are three short readings and a video.  Be sure to read the comments attached to the first article.

1.       A Professor's Plea to Stop Teaching Calculus in High Schools
.       http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2014/07/stop_teaching_calculus.html

2.       The Math Myth -- Thinking about math in terms of literacy, not levels (recent video)
.       http://www.pbs.org/newshour/videos/#189137

3.       The public thinks the average company makes a 36% profit margin, which is about 5X too high
.       https://www.aei.org/publication/the-public-thinks-the-average-company-makes-a-36-profit-margin-which-is-about-5x-too-high/

4.       Critical Thinking about Weird Things: Teaching “Skepticism, Science and the Paranormal” at University
.       http://www.issuesmagazine.com.au/article/issue-june-2011/critical-thinking-about-weird-things-teaching-“skepticism-science-and-parano