OK. First off, I am probably among the least qualified on the planet to make the following statements.*

"Any way you parse the numbers though, we are FAR from ranking among the "lowest of countries in the world in general knowledge"."

And we are also FAR from ranking among the highest, as we should be.

"We are not as dumb as you presume us to be."

Nor are we anywhere near as smart as we think we are!

Ranking 15 or 25 is one hell of a long way from #1, which is where we should be.

If you take into account the appalling amount of money we shovel into our educational system (with very little positive result) we should be three places above #1!

By allowing our children to coast through school with the least possible effort(yes, just like I did) rather than pushing them to be the best that they can, we fail both our children and our country.

Considering our prosperity and huge amounts of leisure time we should be the most intelligent country on the planet. Instead we graduate High School students who can't read or spell(these are NOT 'useful talents', these are absolute minimum basics for intelligent communication), have no work ethic, and think social responsibility means responding promptly to a text message.

* In High School and the two semesters of collage that I attended, I never once took a book home with me. By listening in class and using a little common sense I maintained a steady B to B+ average. Had I applied myself at all I could have been an A+ student.