From my conversations with 20-year-ago school students, American schools are culture led by sports, and football most of all. No surprise many parents don't see a reason for their kids to excel in STEM.
I hate to break it to you, but a lot of our most valuable research is produced by people who did their primary education outside the US. Just go to a STEM research lab at any US university connected to a Nobel prize or Fields medal in the last 10-20 years, and it will be almost completely made up of internationally educated students / professors / etc.
Like a sorting algorithm which is O(n) on nearly-sorted input - the utility is limited.
Some schools are sports centric. Others have to work hard to get students interested in sports.
I think the implication that sports are bad is also misleading. Sports programs, when run well, can do a good job of getting kids into routines, out of trouble, and keeping them accountable to their peers for something. The TV and movie style sports culture where the football players aren’t expected to even attempt to pass their classes doesn’t actually exist in most schools.