American public education nearly useless?

Now, the public school system, from a student's view, is also what you make of it. For example, a kid can go to school and learn as much as they can and become an achiever or a kid can go to school and be lazy and do nothing with their lives. You have to look at performance from that standpoint as well. One thing we cannot do is to judge a school by how much money it throws at a kid since it ultimately is up to the kid whether or not they want to learn.