Hi there,
Maths. Let's keep that for archiects and mechanic, why do they bother normal high school students with it?
Ummm... because math is the one way to learn structured, logical thinking and because a basic knowledge of math can help you to uncover a whole bunch of ugly lies the media are trying to sell you every day? 
That could be one reason, I think. 
I don't agree, I don't remember any formulas we've learned and no one really does. Yes, I can do basic calculating, percentages, whatever I need in everyday life (even that's a rarity), but sloving a kilometer long inequality doesn't make you any further unless you want to specify to a field where it's required (that's what universities are for). They should teach less theoretic and more useful stuff like monetary issues (yes, partly math), how does the government and the election system work, show different fields of work and further learning possibilities (and what can they expect from them), why is brainless consuming not good, how can one be an (economically) responsible adult... But that doesn't just go only to higher level maths, in my country they teach waaaay too much theory in every subject and nothing of the really important stuff. We've learned in 10th grade from American math books that were written for
college (university) students, because the desired level of maths is that high in high school here (I've learned a bunch of subjects in English).
But I'll stop rambling and being off-topic.
