RoughRomanMemes

I don't know, this is a very old problem. As the WW1-era joke goes, "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."

I think it more pertinently relates to the strong obsession with knowing our internal divisions (the States), the size of the country itself, and, to a certain degree, the somewhat self-absorbed nature of American culture. Not in the strictly speaking selfishness sense, which is more recent, but in the looser "America is basically 99% of the world, and I guess there are furriners out there too?", which dates back to the 19th century at least. We have few 'traditional' enemies, and only two neighbors by land, so learning foreign affairs has not been traditionally important in American schooling. Also, STEMlords have always ruled public American discourse on education and economics 😔

Our education system, despite having many highs and lows, averages to a... well, pretty average standard of education amongst developed countries, though deeply below-average in cost-efficacy. It definitely has gone downhill the past 40 years, though, relative to other countries.