There are surveys like this published all the time. For the most part I think they are bs, many are taken on the street during the middle of the day, hello, most people with a brain are working in the middle of the day, not walking around. It seems like the jobless idiots are always the ones that get to represent all of us. Of course some of the surveys and studies are more valid and I have no doubt the US sits back in 50th place, our school system stinks for the masses. However, it is decent for the gifted and makes it easy for those who are smart to advance (I’m speaking in general). If you do well in school colleges and universities and even the gov. are more than willing to give you all kinds of grants and loans to attend higher education, which practically everyone needs because we don’t learn diddly in standard school.

I have never been a fan of our education system and I think the blame for the current state of education system falls square on the shoulders of the teachers and school administration. Anyone can argue that it is the governments fault but it really is not, unless you want to blame them for not stepping in and fixing things when they are obviously broken. The schools basically get money from the gov. (3 layers) and are expected to do with it what is best for our kids. Sounds good, we should be able to trust our teachers and their administrators, right? Wrong! With a few exceptions they have sold us out for their own personal gain. They have been given tons of discretion to do what’s best, they get to choose the class books, write the curriculum and basically plan out the child’s entire education and yet somehow with all this freedom to make the best choices for our children we fall to 50th place in world rankings. Wtf.

IMO most schools show no real commitment to the kids and have turned into a business to make money, and a cheep product (dumb kids) is the result.

Lemur’s point about the teachers union is spot on. I have seen reports where pedophile teachers are given fake teaching jobs away from kids (because they administration knows they cant be trusted around them) because it is virtually impossible to fire them because the teachers unions put up so many rules and appeals and such that it ends up costing more money than to keep them employed in a fake position.

John Stossel has done some decent reporting on this sort of thing. Clicky.
Hundreds of teachers the city calls incompetent, racist, or dangerous have been paid millions. And what do they do while they get paid? They sit in rubber rooms.
But, But… The US is lucky because our smart people are really smart and easily carry the rest of us.