Too often the football coach is the biology teacher, although I know not always. Then, a lot of high schools require only one or two years of a lab science to graduate, so the kids aren't exposed to very much science at all. Third, a lot of school districts/school boards have terrorized teachers into not teaching real science They can't talk about evolution. They can't talk about the real age of the Earth or the Universe.

At home mom and dad probably have forgotten what little they themselves ever learned, and if the family buys into fundamentalist religion, then science is scorned.

The truly incredible thing is that despite all that, this country still turns out world-class scientists and research, and still tends to own the Nobel Prize.