Exactly this. I don't understand how people can believe pre-college education in the United States has fallen off a cliff. It has always been generally awful an

Exactly this. I don't understand how people can believe pre-college education in the United States has fallen off a cliff. It has always been generally awful and very slowly improving. SAT scores have been steadily rising in all cohorts, even as more people have taken it. The US benefited in the post-war period by draining Europe of its top scientific talent, which catapulted it to the top by a wide margin. There is no reason to expect that level of dominance to persist.