[exDemMom]

Not only did Americans score poorly compared to many international competitors, the findings reinforced just how large the gap is between the nation’s high- and low-skilled workers and how hard it is to move ahead when your parents haven’t.

I blame the poverty culture for much of that. Plenty of kids, especially minority, are taught *not* to seek success. They're filled with propaganda meant to keep them in the lower class. These defeatist ideas permeate the poverty culture from all sides, making escaping that culture and mindset extremely difficult.

The United States will have a tough time catching up because money at the state and local level, a major source of education funding, has been slashed in recent years, said Jacob Kirkegaard, an economist with the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Education performance has little correlation to money spent. Schools do not need to have the latest in computers in most classes, nor do they need huge money wasting bureaucracies. In fact, in many basic skills classes, I would say that computers hinder education. For instance, how is a kid supposed to learn how to set up and solve math problems on a computer?

[The Antiyuppie]

If a miracle took place tomorrow and schools went back to the techniques and discipline of 40 years ago, the damage that has been done will not be fixed for 40 years, and by then the rest of the world will have moved on. Yes, it’s that bad.

[1010RD]

Toss in a government school system designed to indoctrinate, rather than educate. Plus the schools are designed around Push systems that benefit only the teachers and bureaucrats.