U.S. education spending tops global list, study shows

That's certainly part of it, but I think the bigger problem is the shift away from education toward indoctrination. Teachers need to teach English, math, science, history, and civics, until students are actually proficient at these essential subjects.

That could be why most of our STEM educated workers are of foreign origins. If you have kids or grandchildren and closely review their curriculum and methods of delivery, it becomes apparent what the problem is.

First, Japan's school system and its students are very disciplined and performing well is demanded by families as well as the school. Second, teachers (and I taught 9 years) in some school districts are protected too much. This is the one profession that if you can't perform well as a teacher you need to be let go, but that doesn't happen. Third, some parents just don't give a crap and they do not set expectations for their children. I taught at the public school and private. Here is the difference, in the public school, I taught 130 kids, during parent teacher conferences I had maybe 70 parents come or make some sort of contact if they could not make it. In the private school I had every parent show up or call me if they could not make it. Schools in the U.S. have become more of a social thing for kids than institutions of learning.

If you do that the figures get worse not better. I believe it comes out to or is close to $14-15,000 a year per K-12 student. How much is it for college tuition at a State University? We are going to pay over $620 Billion as a country in 2017 for K-12 education with the performace of K-12 students continuing to decline when compared with other countries.