What people need to know
People need to know freedom and justice - that's the broad summary. They need to know how their society works so that they can live in freedom (minimum constraint by others) and show justice (distribution of wealth, power, and other values) to all.
Some significant quotes that interested me:
"Education should lead to a world based on freedom and justice; where freedom means a minimum of constraint by others and justice means a distribution of wealth, power and other values consistent with this kind of freedom."
"Men in society necessarily constrain each other. The problem is one of defining the boundary between one man's fist and the other's nose."
"People understand the world by means of language."
"A minimum breadth of language skill is necessary in order to protect one's interest in the world; to understand one's situation well enough to act upon it significantly."
"People learn what they need and are allowed to learn."
"Basic educational policy must guarantee not only freedom of access but an adequate supply of the resources required for everyone to learn how society really works."
"How society works needs to be learned by every responsible member of a free, just world."
"As the world changes, the necessary content of universal education will also change."
"Schooling has become the most costly of human enterprises."
"More people are enrolled in school than are employed in agriculture."
"Schools separate learning from work and play; parcel the world into subject matters and divide learners into teachers and students."
This final point is what I've been thinking for a while in my exploration of Authentic Inquiry Maths:
"Learning occurs naturally in the course of encountering real world problems, but when these are subdivided into mathematics, economics, accounting and business practice they become so artificial that for most people learning can be induced only at great cost."