Yeah um ok so do you not get being sarcastic or facetious. My tone was very much clear that I was not being all that much serious. My god. Seriously if I was trying to have a serious historical conversation do you think I'd refer to "drunken ancestors." And you should read up more on education here. Because yes the public schools in the south and Midwest and west coast are sub par. But in terms of test scores the schools in the mid Atlantic and northeast states are quite on par with most of Western Europe. Also I finished my last 4 years of lower education at a private school, there were quite a large number of international students from the U.K. And Western Europe whose parents didn't live here. If the schools there are so great then why would anyone pay lots of money to send their kids here. Also education in the US is entirely done at the state and city level, so there is a perception that all schools are subpar and not good. Except in suburban DC, New York, or Boston the studies show that the schools where I'm from are quite on par with yours.