Why does engineering/math/science education in the US suck?

For anyone who missed it, there was a beautiful exposition written on the quagmire that is mathematics education in the United States:

http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

it doesn't suck. our standards continually get higher as globalization makes the number of people we are competing with larger.

in 1900 you were competing with someone down the block in 1925 you were competing with a city of people in 1950 you were competing with the nation in 1975 you were competing with japan in the year 2000 and onwards you're competing with the population of china and india

I think it is because America isn't meant to produce smart people. It is meant to make an environment hospitable for smart people. Cynical as it may sound, this means a consumer based worker population, which entails dumbing down.

Our economy runs off of mass production, so the products need to meet the greatest common denominator. You get a big common denominator by leveling society.

There has been a lot of articles/papers written about the lack of the creativity element in modern education although it is used in almost every high level field. I think that the problem is all these standardized tests where student performance is directly related to the teacher's and school's funding.

I agree, there is a complete disconnect between what industry wants and what is taught at engineering school. 5 years down the line, most people can't recognize the equations used in school.