Why/ how has the american educational system failed?

America spends way too much money on the military which would leave less over for education, maybe that's why.

What schools do is prepare us for the world of work. Things like doing pointless tasks, having all these layers of people (useless chain of command), forbidding any form of enjoyment while you are there, expected to be robots basically, dress codes, and of course the ass kissers get special recognition.

What school does NOT do is prepare one for a good career nor does it prepare anyone for the real world. Instead of teaching useless shit like trig or calculus, why not have classes about balancing a budget, checking account, etc? Instead of requiring gym, why not driver's ed? IMO that is probably the single most important thing we should be teaching our kids in and out of school - how to be safe drivers. At one point there was driver's ed in schools.

I think course on how to live on one's own would be a lot more important and interesting that sitting through some god damn literature class studying The Great Cuntsby.

TLDR - they spend more time teaching bullshit rather than things kids will actually need once they hit the real world.

Because the US is a shithole.

Many things mentioned about teaching kids useful life skills is supposed to be taught by parents. So schools have to pretend they're teaching culture for all Americans to agree on some useless shit they were forced to go thru for 10 years of their lives. School was a means to understand other humans but mostly to go thru destructive atrocities by the social environment of fukt up behavior by adolescents and totally crush 90% of children's self esteem or allow the 10% to hold a false sense of pride.
All in all, it's a daycare center filled with confusing round and round bullshit to keep kids busy until they've completed puberty and inevitably help out in the work industry without human problems.
If you aren't worried about getting accepted into a college, then you should allow your kids to hangout at school for friends and dismiss the home work and bs taught (or at least maintain a D to not get held back), and actually teach them useful shit yourself and get them involved in work and in life by age 12 to begin building their own characteristics and real life skills and interests.
Live for real, and become an individual.

ROFL Book report, SUCCESS

Unions are kinda ripping up the funding for the schools. Teachers who want job security are sucking the funding of these schools dry.

Your literacy rates are shockingly low for a first world country. In fact I'm pretty sure it's still the lowest literacy rate of any first world country, but I can't be bothered googling so please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong there. Either way, I know it's bad.

I'm not sure how that happens. I would imagine part of it is simply the fact that the country is so big, and state by state will be quite diverse educationally. So there's no one size fits all.

However you also need to consider that your space program has been unparalleled for over half a century (although the Japanese look close to catching up now, judging off the last couple of years) which involves being good at a multitude of complex things including theoretical physics, robotics, biochemistry, geology, aerospace engineering etc. You also have contributed very impressively to modern medical advancements. I don't believe that you are world leaders but still comfortably up there with the best on a long-term basis. I list these two examples because I happen to know quite a lot about these industries, but I imagine that there will be a whole host of other scientific fields in which you make great contributions. You dominate a lot of these kinds of industries. So... one has to conclude that your education system is doing an excellent job, at least some of the time, surely?

I think people take advantage of the opportunities they can. Or they don't. Personally, I'm housepoor so my kids can go the the best schools. Will they still learn how to manage nonexistent numbers? Yes. Will they learn how to feed themselves? No. Do they learn how to drive? Nope. As a parent, I balance those things so my kids can learn life skills and not just how to take a test.