Just my opinion but... is Calculus an important high school goal? I took AP Calc in high school, got a 4 on the exam. I did Electrical Engineering in college and took college level math through differential equations. And yet... a) I've never used calculus once in my STEM career, b) looking back I realize I never really understood calculus back when I was in high school and college.
I came to that realization a decade after college when I was digesting 3Blue1Brown's series on Calculus for fun and had it finally click. Before then I was basically a Chinese Room that was able to solve calculus problems via pattern matching (i.e. "oh, this problem fits the shape of these rules, etc.") without really understanding how calculus works.
> without really understanding how calculus works.
I think this is the key. No, calculus isn't incredibly applicable in day to day life. But understanding how it works builds critical thinking skills that absolutely are. Math should be about critical thinking, not memorizing. Common core seems to be moving us in the right direction.
I came to that realization a decade after college when I was digesting 3Blue1Brown's series on Calculus for fun and had it finally click. Before then I was basically a Chinese Room that was able to solve calculus problems via pattern matching (i.e. "oh, this problem fits the shape of these rules, etc.") without really understanding how calculus works.