The average is not great, but it hides the underlying cause. If you look into education scores more closely you will find that subpopulations have greatly varying results. This implies that it isnt just about schools.

The same goes for infant mortality. People cite infant mortality as evidence that our healthcare system sucks. But really infant mortality is clustered in certain sub populations.

The same goes for murder rates and gun violence.

Unfortunately the problems cannot be fixed until people admit and are willing to talk about the underlying actual root causes.