Yes there are schools, pharmacies, and grocery stores, you just didn't see them because you were passing through.
That is nowhere near the level of homeless shooting up in the street, it's just a small community.
Of course you see signs and gas stations, because you are driving through the towns on the highway...
Much of the US "wild" area is simply not economically useful for major settlement, with the possible exception of the Pacific Northwest and far Northern California.
A drive through rural France looked much the same as a drive through Texas, in terms of how often you'd encounter a town and the setup for a particular town. The major difference being that the transition from major city to rural is a lot faster since France has restricted urban sprawl quite a bit more.
Bleak is a relative term. I’d call it “bleak” if young people have to leave the place where they grew up just to be able to afford a house in a decent school district. Where people are tied together by little more than what industry they work in or maybe the fancy gym they go to.
These are percentage rates, not absolute numbers, so it's not obvious why the numbers will look better in a smaller state.
> On average, California performs far better than any of the states you mentioned and that is proven by the population differences
California performs worse on many metrics even accounting for demographic differences. For example, in Iowa, Hispanic children score an average of 273 in NAEP's 8th grade math test. In California, they score just 262. In Texas it's 274. Median income for hispanic-headed households in California is about $46,000, versus $48,000 in Iowa. (Adjusted for cost of living, Hispanic households in Iowa have 30% more purchasing power than Hispanic households in California.)