Apparently it is.

I don't think that graph says what you think it says

i think it says that the USA has won more NPs in every category than almost every other country, suggesting that we have focused way more resources on high-achieving students than other countries do. what do you think it says?

Exactly that. What I don't understand is what that has to do with "leaving kids behind".

the US education system has taken an approach in which a disproportionate amount of its funding is used to train the top 10 percent of the population (based largely in wealth and/or talent). so that 10 percent does better than the top 10 percent of other countries. but that also means that our other 90 percent is getting less training than they could if that same amount of educational funding was more evenly distributed.

Good thing Trump's going to axe the Department of Education then

The DoE is an abject failure by every standard. It spends more per student, and produces worse results than almost any other developed country. Schools produced well educated students before 1979, and they will go back to doing so after the DoE is abolished.

Funding for the Dept has dropped over 30 years after you adjust for inflation. It's effectiveness also suffered greatly by embracing the "assessment" craze that has swept the country, ironically disracting educators and administrators from focusing on program quality. It does need an overhaul from top to bottom.

Let the states do it

no but the number of blanket abortion bans did. and the number of preventable deaths of would-be mothers.

no, that's worse. look at what's happened already with abortion being handed back to the states.

What, did the number of abortions go up?