It would be far better if it were (replacing, say, calculus).
Calculus isn't part of the normal curriculum in most high schools, either. It's generally taught as an advanced class senior year. The students to whom it is taught are generally the ones most likely to benefit from the leg up in college since many if them will at least consider majors that require calc.
We'd be way better off than we are now trying to teach everyone calculus.
Which we're not doing.
This guy isn't quite random, being someone who actually knows a little something about math.
But not about K-12 education, necessarily, or about relative importance of various disciplines. I'd certainly not take his word over the Department of Education's research that he derides, for example.
You've argued that we should be teaching "practical" math to students, but that's not the case being made here. He's arguing that we should be teaching a few years of basic math and then after that they'd benefit more from literature or music classes.
The original article is long on assertion and short on actual data to back it up. It amounts to "people don't need math." If you believe that, most of the piece is redundant. If you don't, he isn't convincing.