I think the problem is that it won't work for all people. The system actually seems to work well for the average person. However, a country like the USA, can benefit from attracting these kind of people (Investors, Infrastructure, Big companies, Networks...) and it seems like it's already doing so to some extent.
The system actually seems to work well for the average person.
I think on the basis of international comparisons that the United States school system, at least, is not serving average learners well, because they only reach the achievement levels of BELOW-average persons in several other countries, including countries that were much poorer than the United States only a generation ago.
(The several national comparison charts in this publication, by the way, are excellent examples of best practice in showing statistical data. The take-home point is that average students in the United States score like bottom end students in the best-performing countries, and even top-end students in the United States score only like average students in those countries.)
