Quelle surprise! You Should Have Known

Some may wonder why US students score so low in math and science. One needs look no further than the way teachers are trained.

One person stopped in surprise as I said, “Light is just one form of radiation.” We talked for a few minutes, during which I found out she was a pre-service teacher working toward certification in biology and environmental science. She asked, what does light have to do with radiation? -- by which she meant the type of radiation she had learned about, capable of mutating DNA. I explained that type of radiation usually refers to particles, flying bits of unstable atoms that have come apart. She wanted to know more about the mutating radiation from space she had also heard about. I guessed she meant cosmic rays, also particles (sometimes entire atomic nuclei) that were ejected from exploding stars and subsequently accelerated almost to the speed of light by our galaxy’s magnetic field.

....Am I naïve, I asked, to wonder how a pre-service teacher, so obviously curious and quick on the uptake as my radiation questioner, could have missed learning about electromagnetic radiation versus particle radiation? These experienced teachers assured me that someone certified in biology and environmental science could easily have finished without required physics courses, and taken chemistry courses that never ventured into mention of EM radiation.

Source

If the teacher is abysmally ignorant of her subject matter, and the textbooks are generally excremental garbage, why would anyone expect the students to do well in science and math (or any other topic)? It is far more important for teachers to be politically correct and properly "diverse." Expertise in important knowledge areas, and skill in teaching, are considered obstacles to training the right kind of teacher.