Václav Havel wrote in “The Power of the Powerless”: “A better system will not automatically ensure a better life. In fact, the opposite is true: only by creating a better life can a better system be developed.”
I think Havel is an excellent testimony to why much of the commentary about American education falls so short of the market and doesn't accomplish anything. It is all very well to talk about a system, and systems and institutions have massive influences. But an educational system is a reflection of a society, and American society's crucial features - lack of social trust, high degree of social alienation (especially among minority groups like blacks or poor whites/other poor groups), high individualism, limited community engagement, a lack of trust in authorities and institutions, high social tensions, high degrees of inequality, and limited societal mobility - are all very bad for educational perspectives. You can see that there are groups who break the stereotype of poorer US educational performance - you have massively superior educational attainment among many immigrant groups, like the Igbo people from Nigeria, and among (eastern) Asians. They have massive focus on educational attainment, strong entrepreneurial traditions, stable community structures, etc. For these people, the American educational system works very well. The problems which plague American education are doubtless in part inspired by the system, but far more by the general society it has to cope with.
You can see this in other countries too: when I was teaching abroad in France, other teachers talked about how student scores and results have declined greatly over the past several decades. Now, teachers all over the world doubtless say similar things, but I could believe it easily enough: that French society is becoming more individualist, its trust and social cohesion is in decline, and that the traditional high standards of French lycées (there once was a day when a diploma from a French lycée was equivalent to a diploma from an American university!) have massively collapsed. An Americanization of society, accompanied by heightened marginalization of people (or at least their broader appearance in society), denigration of standards, heightening inequality, and the growing separation of society into a successful, highly educated, upper echelon and masses of abandoned lower groups. France is simply not as far along this path as the United States - as the joke went, France is like America, just always 20 years behind.
What kills attempts at successful reform is that Americans would much prefer to deal with structural discussions rather than take a look at themselves.
Take the issue of teachers. Teachers need significant prestige, influence, moral authority, to be able to effectively educate and direct children. This is a factor which I always saw noted in discussion of the Nordic countries, with their brilliant educational performance - that teachers are very valued and respected in their society. I wouldn't say that they are respected to anywhere near the same extent in the United States. The discussion about fixing this tends to turn on the issue of teacher pay - which is an important issue and I am sure that teachers could use a pay increase. But there have been studies about the correlation between teacher pay and student results, and found exactly no correlation: instead of addressing a societal issue (teachers being insufficiently respected, honored, valued), Americans just want to pay more to them. Or instead of wanting to suggest serious improvements to how Americans teach and help their kids, they simply want to fire the bad teachers - what an easy and simply solution, not requiring any cultural or societal changes on the part of American people!
I would suggest that fixing the American educational system to be like the most successful areas of the world relative to education (the Nordic countries and East Asia) is simply not possible for American society: it would require a fundamental change in American society to produce a more homogenous, education inclined, less alienated, less unequal, and with less abandoned regions like the Rust Belt or American inner cities. The education system reflects society, not society the educational system. Some nibbling around the edges is possible, but it is telling that Americans always spend some of the highest amounts on education of any developed country, for such singularly poor results: just throwing more money at the problem won't fix it.
This isn't to say that structural problems don't exist, but I think they are more present at the college level and particularly in the crafts and professional education sector.
