Apologies for getting political, but I come from a family of teachers in two red states (actually three now, thanks Wisconsin, you do love to hate yourself), and we're out of fucks to give.
EDIT: I know we don't like to get political here, but the question was "Why is America bad at education compared to other countries." First of all, it is bad, and it spends more than other countries, somehow. Makes sense when half the country has put their feet down stubbornly into the stand and said "pull yourself up by your bootstraps!" Or some nonsense.
Here's a great analysis of the Republican platform vis a vis education: https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-education/2016/07...
Inevitable disclaimer: obviously not all republicans are opposed to effective, common sense education, and obviously not all democrats support it. But uh... compare the platforms.
That's a misrepresentation. Plenty of them some care very much about fixing education and funding it. Just the kind the find most effective:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Zh96wc01k
The difference, as the video mentions, is that they always gets attacked as being 'anti-education', depsite intentions and data supporting their efforts, largely by the heavily entrenched people and organizations who have most to gain from keeping the same status-quo systems. Ie, the massive top-heavy administration that controls pubic education, unions, pension funds, etc. They have plenty of political pull.
Ultimately that is very much equally propaganda, is it not?
The right also tends support more state financing and control of education, and funding towards education has increased dramatic in states for decades. The only thing that has stagnated (but hardly declined) is federal spending:
https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending
And percentage of GDP spending for education has hardly dipped under republicans either:
https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_chart_20.html
Words are always valued over actions and the ideology of a few extremists always seem to always take precedence over data and tangible outcomes. Which is why I hate debating this subject.
That would be partly because it is true http://www.people-press.org/2017/07/10/sharp-partisan-divisi... ('Republicans increasingly say colleges have negative impact on U.S.')
And its not helped by the fact that much of the GOP is apparent anti-science, and anti expertise https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/american-trust-scient... ('A 54 percent majority of Democrats, compared with just 13 percent of Republicans, say they have “a lot” of trust that what scientists say is accurate and reliable.')
/e: Not to suggest that either approach is without flaws, just that the approaches are different.
