Time and time again, I keep finding that the people insisting schools teach "Critical thinking" were the exact people who didn't pay attention in English class when that was taught.
Like when people used to say that "Schools should teach useful things like balancing a checkbook or paying your taxes". Which is funny, because the skills required to do those two things are addition, subtraction, and reading.
Americans don't learn because Americans are adamant that they shouldn't have to pay attention to learn, that school is a liberal scam, that broad willful ignorance is not something to be ashamed of, that they have more important things to care about.
Families who value education have always gotten a good education in the USA, and that isn't about choosing a private school either. It's about the person needing an education getting personally invested in gaining that education.
Meanwhile Bush Jr gave us an educational regime where schools cannot at all hold back someone who really needs to be held back. So the curriculum needed to be dumbed down to accommodate people.
> Americans don't learn because Americans are adamant that they shouldn't have to pay attention to learn, that school is a liberal scam, that broad willful ignorance is not something to be ashamed of, that they have more important things to care about.
That's why it can't just be school. It needs to be a societal thing that goes beyond schools to all the other places people get socialized and learn. I mean maybe churches, social groups, and families are all teaching the willful ignorance you're talking about, but if they are that's what needs to change. People need to hear the same thing from different places before they'll believe it sometimes.