> Education we're #1 there's no question about that.

I am wondering what you mean. Top-tier universities full of foreign nationals doing excellent research and funded by exorbitant fees? Sure.

But what about pre-college education?

Reading this thread, with people variously claiming things about Israel as if the country had sprung up from nothing with divine rights on the 7th october, or about Iran, as if the regime had suddenly appeared in 1979, without any US involvement in its suffering before (1953) or after (1984), makes me willing to question that education in the US is promoting critical thinking. Maybe the time spent singing the anthem would be better used actually reading history?