[scott_s]

But what are the more useful things? That depends heavily on what, exactly, you go into. For many people, most of the math they took is never used. But that's not known at the high school level, so a high school education tries to serve as a foundation for further learning. You're assuming discrete math would be more useful to more students than trig. I doubt this is true.

If I had to learn trig my freshmen and sophomore year of college, when I was taking my introductory physics classes, I never would have kept up with the physics. My course assumed a solid foundation in trig and calculus.

I distinctly remember having to use various properties of triangles to solve many of my introductory mechanics problems.