I agree that for an average american child to invest time in studying math as opposed to learning to play a musical instrument or doing sports or learning how to cook has very little utility. I think one of the main reasons people push math at civilizational/educational theory/political level is that it is basically a meaningless topic and non-controversial and fills up the school day with material that nobody on earth would find offensive... as opposed to, for example, history or political science. And I say all of that that even though I have a math degree from a legitimate university. If you need math done you can pretty much just pay someone else to do it. You almost never need math done. If there is some important math to be done, someone else is almost certainly better qualified to do it than you are, so let them do it. Life is just too short.