[rayiner]

You're assuming a difference between the U.S. and Europe that's not there. Looking at the 2018 PISA scores, for example, U.S. 15-year-olds do fine in reading: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2018/pdf/PISA2018_compi.... Slightly ahead of Norway, Germany, Denmark, and New Zealand.

The U.S. does much worse in math, but I don't know why any of the explanations being discussed here (parental involvement, etc.) would result in good reading scores but bad math scores.

[no_wizard]

I think a far more relevant set of statistics would be post graduate outcomes for students, such as university achievement (including graduation rates)[0]

[0]: https://www.ijbmcnet.com/images/Vol3No3/2.pdf

[xyzzyz]

By this metric, United States is doing very well. Over 50% of Americans aged 25-34 have completed tertiary education, putting us at the 5th position within OECD, well ahead of countries like Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, Denmark, or Poland.

I don't think it's a meaningful metric, though, because most tertiary degrees are a waste of time, and higher university graduation rate can be worse if that translates to more people getting useless degrees.

[s1artibartfast]

Is there any reason to think that these differences are not entirely explained by immigration in the USA?