One could say that the educational systems in America are just another casualty in the political, social, racial, immigration and other wars that are battering the country.
From a time when teaching was a calling, teaching went into being the only option for college graduates who had nothing special to offer the job markets. Another year or so in a credentials program, and an instant career was available. Add in the snowballing need for everyone from students to administrators to "design, develop and implement" some of the wackiest "improvements" just for the sake of improvement, and an overload of administrative and programmatic details can overwhelm even the most dedicated classroom teacher.
Layers of "improvement" came as layers of management and oversight developed. Worse, school boards that were populated by average people who were popular enough to get elected, but clueless about the profession, created management and leadership problems that forced some courts and state level authorities to take control of whole districts.
Immigration and population change has always been happening in our main ports of debarkation, New York City and just about anywhere in California. School districts in those two places had baptism by fire as immigrants, who speak as many as 150 different languages at just one school, put their children into the first gateway to opportunity in America. But some children, torn between their parents culture and the world in which they find themselves, give up on any kind of American dream.
With the increasing availability of cocaine during the Reagan administration, parental debilitation became an increasing issue. As the drug culture has expanded into amphetamine and designer drugs, whole communities of all ethnic and racial makeups started demonstrating inability to care for their children. The children lost their ability to do well in school and the foster care system became overwhelmed.
Poverty, lawlessness, organized criminal activity, and racism have never gone away in America. Nobody said that. Nobody needs to be saying that. These issues make for challenging times as some children see nothing but insurmountable goals in increasingly hostile school environments and just drop out to become cannon fodder in the wars on poor people and the wars on the easiest people to catch selling drugs. But a lot of those kids go on to get their General Ed degrees, and not while in any jails. Adult education is booming.
The rich kids are having their own problems. Between the alcohol, drugs and family dysfunction, they can be even more at risk because they will not have to worry about the basics of housing and food, and may see no benefit to the higher educations that they should be heading for.
But, with all of this negativity, high school graduations are higher than ever. Colleges are packed. Junior colleges are packed. The technical schools are thriving businesses. Adult ed courses are packed. Young people are finding their way toward educational goals that their own grandparents never met. Many Americans are not as smart as today's fifth graders. And the teaching profession is not populated by mediocre college graduates anymore, but by some dedicated professionals.