Re: Math, chemistry, engineering?
What happened was that the education system became more about the power and preservation of the education system than it was about actually educating anyone. The Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
Certainly most parents still consider a good education important. As you say, some of this is cultural. Asians here seem a lot more hard-assed about how their kids do in school than others, but there are exceptions all around. Many parents are trying to find alternatives to the educational monolith. If we want to make education better, we need to leave room for those alternatives.