[trollbridge]

One would think that, but the recent educational attainment surveys (PISA would be an example) show Americans performing well on the whole. There are going to be people from any population that don't learn very much in high school, but overall, Americans are a well-educated lot of people.

Spending on education is at fairly high levels (for example, some major cities spend over $20,000 per student per year), with surprisingly little impact on results versus districts that spend a lot less. I would say that the public as a whole is willing to spend on taxes for schools, too. I see tax increases for schools generally passing at the local level plus more spending at both the state and federal level going through. There may be a lot of room for discussion about /how/ that money is being spent.