I've noticed this too and wondered, often, why this is so. Is it because American parents are so disconnected and uninfluential with their kids? It seems like in other countries, the parents start in a kid's early years to pressure them to get a good education so you can have a better life and even if the parents don't understand the assignments, they monitor their kids to make sure the kid does the homework and reading and whatever else will help him/her at school. I don't think most American parents do this (and the parents who do have kids who excel in school). American parents tend to let the tv (and now all those iPods and iPhones and vid consoles, etc.) monitor the kids and as long as the kids are don't demand much from the parents, don't make a lot of waves which cause the parents to have to, yikes, make time in their busy lives to tend to their kids' problems, everything is fine. Just saying to a kid, "do your homework" or "you have to do well in school" with no other interaction is not enough. And it is sooooo easy to blame society and schools for the failure--I'm so sick of people blaming everyone and everything else but themselves. Schools can only do so much (jeez, and we underpay teachers so horribly!); if there is no backup going on at home, then 50% or more of what was taught in school is lost. Sure, society has had it's faults and used to hold certain ethnicities and genders back but that's all changed and the only one holding someone else back now is ones own self. Every single parent I know who has kids who have excelled has taken the time to be concerned and "supervise" their kid's education and homework. Homework is important. And if the parent didn't understand the assignment, he/she got books and learned the math (or whatever) so they could help their kid. Or they worked extra and sent the kids to a tutoring situation. The parent(s) took the time to attend the teacher-parent conferences and to research next year's teachers so their kid could get the best and brightest. And the kids knew how important their schooling was simply because their parents were so involved in it. And, of course, there are those rare kids who don't have the advantage of parental assistance yet want to learn and become someone so badly they do it for themselves (these are the real heroes). I am appalled at how many kids I hear saying they never read anything unless they have to because if the book is any good it'll be made into a movie and they'll just go see the movie instead. And I am super stunned at how badly American kids write and spell and even speak. I once heard a young attorney talking with a senior attorney, trying to impress the senior attorney, but she was going, "And like, you know, it was like duuuh!" and using that type of shorthand language kids use with each other and she didn't even know enough to try to use proper English in the situation (she did not last long at the firm).
I have to confess that I was a lousy student. I'm not much of a conformer and found the stale and staid manner of teaching (at least back in my day) to not stimulate my mind (which is a good one) or soul. It was basically memorization (I have no memory, the chip got damages at birth I think) and rout. And all we seemed to study in history was wars and battles. It wasn't until high school (during those amazing late 60's) that I was thrust into a pool of teachers just out of teacher college who were still excited about teaching, still believed young minds could be not so much molded but stimulated to think. We were encouraged to read books that meant something to us (lots of new black writers, banned books, sci-fi even) partly to show us that there are good things in books, that books can be enjoyable experiences. Writing became exciting because we were asked to write about things that tapped our passion (one day the teacher came in reading the latest memo from the principal which made him so angry he crumpled the memo into a ball and hurled it across the classroom where it bounced around and came to rest somewhere. He then noticed us sitting there looking scared and told us to write about that "thing"--we could write anything but it had to be based on that "thing" he just hurled. The results were amazing, kids who never wrote a complete sentence before came up with all these creative and deep things). That's when I learned to love learning and reading and writing and everything else (ok, history I didn't get into until I was middle age). Now that I'm within view (but not within reach unfortunately) of retirement, I find myself thankful that I'm old and won't have to deal with the world run by the kids of today. There are some truly amazing and good ones but the vast majority, well, I don't even think most of them are going to be able to find jobs.