> Uhh, I don't know what planet you're living on where people don't need to use algebra. Almost everybody I know uses algebra regularly.
Yet, only 20% of those surveyed reported using even basic algebra at work, and a lot of those were tradespeople who could have easily been taught the necessary math post-K-10. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/heres-ho....
> And understanding the world around you (science) and learning the language that the world works in (math) are worthwhile in and of themselves for every student just as general human knowledge.
This is an ideological statement more than anything else. I can just as easily say it's much more important for educated citizens to learn history and philosophy, so they can understand how the social structures around them work.
> You can't say that since sometimes teaching science to kids doesn't work we should just delete it from our entire educational program and not try.
It's not clear to me that science education even works often or that adults retain anything meaningful.
> Academic studies in logic (well, formal logic) are I think overrated as far as their ability to train students to think rigorously and carefully is concerned.
I think it's a lot more useful to teach a kid that here are fallacious ways of trying to prove a point--something they can use in real life--than teaching them about the periodic table or cell division (especially since you're largely going to teach them a very dumbed down version of the latter anyway).