Failure of US education

Lack of funding. It isn't given nearly the focus that is should be.

That said, though, education in the US is fundamentally different than education in other parts of the world. If you just look at the scores on SAT tests, the results are really misleading. In most other countries, only the top select students are allowed to attend high school, whereas in the US it's required by law for everyone (until you turn 16, anyway). So the scores and dropout rates for those other countries are only for the top students, while the ones in the US are for all people between the ages of 14 and 18. And despite the costs, I believe that college is also a lot easier to get into the States too, partly because of the universality of high school.

Greed says it all. Failer on the governments part to provide needed funding into the schools.

Good point, Rufio.

The US educates all kids, and is held accountable for their behavior as well. Parents aren't held responsible for nearly as much as they are in other countries, and as a result, teachers are overwhelmed.

parents
I don't think it is the schools that are failing. I think parents are failing.

In the grand scheme of things I don't think our schools are "failing" at all. They have problems and they need work but the idea that we aren't "#1" in every aspect of life means that our schools are failing it stretching things.

LAck of funding is a big part. The flight of the upper middle class to private schools, leaving the public schools with the problem children, requiring the schools to act a social agencies rather than educational institutions are also issues. But a major problem is the way teacher are/were educated. When I was an undergraduate the school I went to had a large eduction department. We used to laugh about the students in that department because they had few requirements other than credits in "education" and wondered what, other than "education theory", they were competent to teach. That is coming back to haunt us for now the majority of the teachers have little background in the subjects they are hired to teach. Rather they are little more than lay social phycologists. That is changing but for at least two generations of students, collages and Universities were requiring little of their education majors other than course in the theory and methods of teaching.