"formal math education"? That only starts in college/university. Everything before that has been highly informal in my experience. We didn't even learn something as fundamental as first-order logic during school!
If you spent the math classes on getting the basics right, the rest could be formalized and then deepened in college. The saved time could be used to go to college earlier.
They don't mean "(formal math) education" they mean "formal (math education)". Formal education is structured education opposed to informal education where you just pick things up casually.
If you spent the math classes on getting the basics right, the rest could be formalized and then deepened in college. The saved time could be used to go to college earlier.