The American education system is NOT lagging- It is busted into a jillion pieces, by the NEA, by female teachers, union teachers, and by Marxist takeover of the school system from pre-K through university level, since 1980 or before. We are DOOMED!
If Americans got an education it was due to the massive amounts of afterschooling done by parents and the children themselves. Now that the progressives have managed to destroy the family, and the supervised homework at the kitchen table ( “afterschooling”) we are seeing the decline in academic achievement. Single moms and two working parents are too exhausted to give kids the attention they need. That was the Marxist plan from the beginning. Broken and exhausted families and dumb kids who will grow up to be Marxist sheep.