Why? Could that be because the teachers are really teaching a religion rather than a discipline and many people are not convinced by that religion? From Amanda Glaze at Evolution Institute:
There has long been a discussion in the scientific and science education communities about the dismal state of evolution acceptance in the United States2. For those not aware, the United States presently ranks second to last in terms of acceptance of evolution among all other first tier nations worldwide3. In fact, the only nation that has lower acceptance rates is Turkey, a country where the national education governing body has, just this year, presented new national standards for education that are noticeably missing their previous coverage of evolution4. In one of the longest running Gallup polls, the poll on evolutionary thinking in the United States has shown little change in people’s ways of thinking about evolution across the three decades it has been administered5. This is a frustration point to many in the field, as traditionally the more we learn, the more evidence there is for something, the more likely people (namely the public) are open to receiving it as scientifically accurate. This is not true of evolution and research in the area has shown patterns of very low statistical relationships between knowledge of evolution and acceptance6. When it comes to evolution, it is not how much you know that determines whether you accept. It is possible to be highly knowledgeable and reject evolution for reasons beyond evidence, just as it is highly possible to have little factual knowledge of evolution and be widely accepting of the theory7. This is especially problematic when considering that a major portion of the approach to the evolution “controversy” over the last century has been focused on providing more evidence but without consideration of the many other factors that come into play. More.
I (O’Leary for News) don’t know much about Turkey. But Americans, generally speaking, feel much freer than Europeans or Canadians to simply dismiss what Top People say if it doesn’t sound right. A modern Western history course might help some people understand why that is. But the course would surely be lost on others — if it isn’t, in any event, disrupted by an SJW swinging a tire iron…
And then there are all the gaffes … One can’t help thinking of the team who thought that the answer to doubts was to get Richard Dawkins involved as if that would allay fears that the program was anti-religion. It’s scary when we consider how stupid some people in positions of power think the rest of the population must be.
See also: Tales of the Tone Deaf, featuring dim profs writing in dozy journals about why people doubt Science and how to fix them.
and
More tone-deafness: How to force Darwinism down people’s throats