How bad are American schools?

Source: College@Home, "Unprepared for College"

I would make a few comments on this data:

1. Our higher education system wastes a lot of money in remedial courses covering material that the students could have and should have learned in K-12, in preparatory courses for upper class courses the students never take.
2. I must wonder how many of the 40 percent of students who graduate from this system are adequately prepared for jobs, much less careers, in the 21st century's economy.
3. The failure of American society to give African Americans and Hispanics adequate opportunities for education, as shown in the poor college completion rates (graph below) as well as the poor college preparation rates (figure above), is not only a shame for the nation, but it will probably cost the nation its leadership in the world economy in this century.
4. We are now in a technology intensive "Information Economy" and will be entering an even more technology intensive "Knowledge Economy" in this century. Failure to educate our children now and in the future will not only handicap them in the world of the 21st century, it will handicap the nation in its efforts to compete.

Source: "The College Completion Agenda", the College Board