In aggregate, America is the richest country in the world, and still the world leader in technology, science, and innovation, but truth be told, the divide between the elite in intelligence and accomplishments as compared to the everyday, common American is getting wider and wider by the day. The reason behind the decline in the intelligence and the accomplishments of today's youth is that our educational system has for far too long, and for far too often, failed to challenge our children, in virtually all of our public school systems, and unfortunately, this failure extends into many of our universities to which nowadays, students can be awarded useless Bachelor's degrees in subjects such as fashion design and hospitality. Our high school students are not mandated to learn a foreign language and only the most basic of mathematical, reading, and writing skills, nor do most college students have to learn a foreign language, American history, or economics in order to graduate with a bachelor's degree. The bottom line is that despite the billions of dollars spent on education in America, most students aren't asked to do much more than make a modest effort in order to accomplish graduation.
There are serious ramifications for students not learning to think, not learning much of anything at all, and in all things, the acceptance of mediocrity as being about as good as you can get from today's mainstream students. In point of fact, in an age of high technology, in an age when more power to utilize fantastic tools are literally at the fingertips of most students in the United States, our educational system doesn't avail itself of pushing students to be the best that they can be. The upshot of all this is that on any international rating of intelligence and of learning, the United States, rather than leading the world, is no better than middling, and often far behind other countries that have resources that are a fraction of this great country.
America fails to understand that the dumber that each generation gets, the less impressive this country will be as a nation, and further to the point, if students aren't able to deal with the real world in a competent manner, than they are rife to be exploited and used by for-profit corporations and governmental agencies who will manipulate them so as to extract what worth than they can exploit from their ignorance. Fortunately, for America we are the lone superpower, and a country that the smartest and most ambitious immigrants desire to come to because of its all encompassingwindows of opportunity as well as its historic embrace of meritocracy; however, for people that don't understand as to where they came from , where they are going to and who they are, that are incapable of comprehending history and its importance, and are use to performing at a dull and listless level, should forces rise against America whether from within or without, our people will for the most part not be able to provide the wherewithal to do right by their country.
The dumbing down of America has reduced most of society into one that cares only for mindless entertainment of all sorts and the plentitude of food to keep their bellies full. Today's generation rests upon the foundation of previous generations that devoted themselves to the last, best, full measure of a man, but this dumbed down and hollow out shell of today's American citizen, cares little as to how America was created, why America was created, or even for what America stands for; all they really care for is a soft, undemanding job, a cool cell phone, and things and activities that addle their undeveloped minds.