I don't think that high schools should be allowed to dissect cats, or larger animals in general. I read something somewhere that only 10% of people will actually pursue science in higher education and fewer of those will ever use the skills/knowledge you gain by doing dissections.

In HS we dissected the fetal pig. I didn't have much of an issue with that because the pigs were all still born or died of natural causes. The other high schools in the area all dissected cats, but my teacher told us that it cost too much money to do the cats, and he had students in the past that weren't as willing to do it.

I can understand dissecting cats in college courses, but don't really understand why so many high schools do it. I do wonder where they get them from though.