Stop blaming the schools. I heard an interview with this kid and he studied for this for years. He studied the spelling of over 150,000 words on his own time. He had a family that encouraged him. It also helped that a few of the words were Asian place names and as he said himself, he used his knowledge of Asian (Indian) spelling and phonetics to figure the words out. That would have been almost impossible for a Henderson or Smith to do other than by pure luck.
About four of the last five were of Eastern Indian heritage, but quite sure they were born in the USA as they spoke US English.