Calculus in Lower Education

Since Calculus is a sort of "big picture" view of what everything in Highschool Math actually means and looks like, should there be some kind of Pre-PreCalculus or Calculus Concepts that can be introdeuced around first year highschool?  So people could perhaps actually understand what it is they're learning?

>>18
its undergraduate and graduate education is renown world wide.
It's dropping quickly.
American universities got really good immediately after WWII when all the intellectuals fled Nazi Germany and the countries they invaded, and then managed to sustain itself on academics coming over to study under those later on (and attract intellectuals fleeing the communist countries), but nowadays more and more are moving to Canada or Europe, in no small part due to ever-increasing budget cuts for universities and scientific research.