I have to respectfully disagree with you. It's true that there is a large group of kids who would be better served if their teachers focused more on applications; however, I think that there's an equally large (if not bigger) group of students for whom learning about applications is not helpful. When I was in public school, my teachers always made an effort to highlight how the math we were learning could be applied to real world problem -- the end result was that often the struggling students would say "You use this to build rocket ships? Well I'm NEVER going to do that... I give up."

The most important thing we can do is change our attitude. It's hard to develop an interest in something that you find difficult when you're receiving mixed messages from all of the adults in your life; when adults will demand you get better grades all while telling you it's okay because "math is for nerds" or "not everyone can do math."

I did well (good grades, but it's not like I was Terence Tao or anything) in math in school, and my teachers in other subjects, my coaches, my friends' parents, etc, acted like I was a freak because of it. You can't give a high five with one hand while you're pointing and laughing with the other. This is the attitude that must change before we can raise a generation who take pride in developing math skills.