Guys it's no single thing that's caused today's situation. There might be one or a few factors more important than all the rest, but IMO nothing is negligible.
About the schools themselves, the curriculums I saw in public High Schools are just too weak, too shallow, nowhere near thorough enough. Back in France it was like we could break ceramic bricks in two with our heads, compared to the limp little problems given during exams in the US HSs. When I got to HS in Tempe AZ, I had trouble finding anything I hadn't already learned 2 years or more previous to then, back in France; except stuff like US Govt. obviously. This, even in 'honors' classes.
I'd show up to the 'adv. pre calc' or whatever it was called, and the teacher would just roll his eyes when I'd ask stuff like 'when you say Mean, do you mean arithmetic, geometric or harmonic Mean?'... The kids had more success memorizing the laws of logarithm operations with funny metaphorical parabols that really didn't represent the actual mechanics of the math, than actualy "seeing" the nuts and bolts that made the math work as it did.
When I looked at their graphs it was like kindergarten kids' crayon drawings.. It sure boiled things down to the basic principles, but it reeked of complacency with respect to what it all really meant. They weren't under or above average kids, they were the regular students in the middle of the bell curve.
The only kids that gave a crap were nerds.
And the preparations for the standardized tests and that test which gave the school its "rating".. Don't get me started on that.. It wasn't about learning anymore, it was about padding score. The teachers were more strict about that stupid test than the tests they gave themselves!
"Train like you fight, fight like you train." - What good is a method where you practice with training wheels 95% of the time?
