Am I missing something? Our system obviously sucks and there are many better systems out there.

At the same time, we definitely have many of the best minds in the world in America. If educating Americans was so important, I'd think we'd have figured it out by now. Is it really that impossible to make our school system better?

On the other hand, we do seem to be good at producing the consumers who power our economic engine. Isn't there just a big gapping inconsistency here?