Science is different
The misconception that Science and Religion are similar, I assume, comes from the fact that in education the manner that scientific knowledge is passed down from teacher to student looks too much like how religious knowledge is passed down from an authority figure to a group of followers:
You are either right, if your answer matches the authority's teaching, or wrong, if it does not.
Let me step back a few steps by separating Science into: “Scientific Method” and “scientific knowledge”.
Education, for the most part, is indeed not Science.
Education is a system designed to get a large number of people quickly more literate in scientific knowledge, not necessarily to turn them into scientists.
Scientific literacy is often measured as being able to recall deemed correct knowledge and correctly recite it -- which is analogous to religious literacy.
But learning what the correct answers are is not the practice of Science. All it is is a well-intentioned shortcut so that society can benefit from a body of knowledge that's known to be true and useful.
The similarity between those two systems of belief breaks down when one looks more deeply at the question “How does one arrive at true knowledge?”. Science and religion have two different answers for that.
For religion -- in the major forms practiced today in the West --, true knowledge is bestowed upon mankind through some kind of holy text. The holy text reflects what's true and a deeper understanding of truth comes from more reading and a deeper interpretation of the same text.
In addition to that, religious institutions and religious authorities might have a say on what's the correct interpretation of the text in the current context and how should followers behave in regards to various issues so as to act consistently with the set of religious beliefs.
Science, on the other hand, has a different answer for the question “How does one arrive at true knowledge?”.
Truth comes from Nature.
What's true must manifest itself as a measurable quantity in a well-defined and reproducible sequence of steps, called an experiment.
Scientific theory is just as true as it is useful in predicting material measurable outcomes.
Let me bring this into more concrete terms.
When an antibiotic is believed to be effective against bacteria, there's a claim and there's a test.
Claim: “This antibiotic is effective at treating infections of a given bacteria”.
Test: “Having selected a representative sample of 2000 people from the population presenting the symptoms of bacterial infection, the antibiotic was administered to 1000 people, selected at random. The other half was administered an inert substance (placebo). Neither the people nor the technicians knew if the administered medicine was the antibiotic or the placebo. It turns out significantly more people from the group that were administered the antibiotic recovered, and in a fewer days, when compared to the other group. Therefore the antibiotic is more effective than letting the disease run its course.”
Science is self-correcting. If it turns out that the results were a fluke of chance or the experiment was miscarried, the study won't replicate and the claim will be disproven.
Science is also self-improving. If it turns out there's an even more potent and/or safe method of treating the disease, there's a well-defined experiment that can be carried out to prove or disprove this new claim.
Science is not at all perfect. It is, after all, carried out by humans, which are imperfect and sometimes subjected to adverse incentives. But it's just the better system of arriving at true and useful knowledge yet developed. It welcomes criticism, self-correction, and being proven useful when it is right, and being proven wrong when it is wrong.