I went to public HS in the US, and the math education there was terrible and completely sub-standard. The science was about average. Now, the school wasn't all bad. The humanities (English, Latin, German, French, Spanish, History) were all of very high quality. I had to do remedial math work before going to college, but had a perfect score on my verbal SAT. I've often wondered why that happened. The only reason I can come up with is that it's harder to get qualified and excellent math educators because those people end up making more money elsewhere.