pre-face: this isn't about my thoughts regarding the US education system, I think many of the same problems exist in our system...
CN: American high schooler's given a test in grade 12 can barely pass the grade 4 and 8 questions. There are example questions at the end.
I did fine on the questions but mostly because I studied US history. I don't know how a high school Canadian would do on this test, probably not great, but this isn't the stuff they study...
But the article begs the larger question: Are we too focused on skill (ability to read) and not content/subject info at the lower grades? I know you kinda have to have an educational background to quite get what that entails so as a larger question: do you think that there is a problem when a vast % of the population is lacking in general knowledge?