RE: Question 2: Single curriculum

Hooray for you, it is indeed possible to fashion a curriculum with a balance of career, hands-on, and academic curricula.  Such a curriculum would produce, with suitable accountability measures, better preparation both for college and for the workplace.
  I worry a lot about the move today toward tracking students into college or non-college bound curricula.  One of the distinguishing marks of American education has been the ease with which individuals can change goals, re-enter the system, and modify their programs as their abilities and motivations develop.  Moves such as SB1731, and the "fascist" move to keep the non-college bound from walking across a stage to get their H.S. diploma (LA Unified) work in exactly the opposite direction.
  All of us should worry about the fact that the University of California is dictating our high school curriculum.  Consider a reckless idea:  throw out A-G, and start over with a more balanced approach.  REmember, the UC doesn't even offer applied-technology curricula, and the academics up there seem to have forgotten about the majority of students who will not go to college, and the still larger number who will never achieve a bachelor's degree.