Public education is one of the main problems, exactly because kids are not taught or even allowed to think and be creative. Their brains are not equipped or wired for thinking and executing orders. As for reading, all they read are mostly stupid texts. I don't live in the US, but I homeschool my child and he is enrolled at an US school. I tried some 'reading and comprehension' tests kids there take in school and I found the texts totally dumb. And I don't think parents are to blame on this one, because the kids have so much homework to do there is little time left for reading real books.
Oh, totally aggree on the crap we are forced to eat.