Re: madeinuk's post.

IMO, the fact that disparities exist isn't germane to the fact that US textbooks are lousy by any objective standard, that the teaching pool's SAT and GRE scores are very low, that high-stakes tests focus on a narrow set of skills, and that homework in the lower grades is of dubious benefit. Etc.

Just because there are disparities doesn't mean that the US education system isn't fundamentally flawed. If the disparities were to disappear tomorrow, the kids would still have math books that present ideas out of order, history books that used the word "immigration" to describe slavery, and a near-total lack of grammar books. And the teachers would still lack subject knowledge.