Well, besides the fact once again that the OP's "facts" and similar facts are just dead wrong, I would like to discuss what I feel are the major impact of these three factors. Some of the other things in the this thread seem absurdly conspiratorial - there's no possible way 14-15 yr old kids, anywhere, would ALL be prepared for college/fulfilling future careers under any system. The government/school system is not designed to hold kids back this way - and if anything most places in the US really do a good job of giving additional opportunities to students willing and able to take them - but there's simply no getting around the fact that some kids won't be at as high a level as others. Anyone who says such occurs in other countries is just lying to your face. And I know that CFC isn't exclusively American so I'm sure other posters can verify things like "every 12 year old in our country studies what Americans study in universities" simply isn't true.
So I'll start with point #3 - which is a chief component of the differences between the US and some countries. We're certainly not alone in being a large nation with a very diverse population - the same does apply to China, India, and other countries. But in comparison to some relatively more homogenous places, say Scandinavian nations, one can see where this has an impact on education. I'd wager the differences between good schools, with upper-class socioeconomic students in the US really isn't different from places in Europe. The problem is, there are a ton of students in the US left behind correlated with other demographics - non-English speaking immigrants, those in inner cities or rural areas, etc... So basically, when looking at some statistic (just an example here) that the US is on average 18th out of 25 compared to European countries in reading or something, these things come into play for other statistics - Luxembourg has a higher GDP per capita simply for being smaller and more homogeneous. This doesn't excuse everything, but it's simple panic mongering and stupidity to act like such statistics represent the whole United States.
So given that some things are rather out of the system's control, we ask, what CAN be done to improve American schools. And here I'm not going to push for some of my personal opinions but just explain why those first two factors I mentioned cause a lot of trouble, for anyone who doesn't know. The first fact is that schools in the US are vastly and primarily funded by local sources, say property taxes. This means schools in rich areas are rather richer, those in poor areas quite poor, leading to huge discrepancies in quality. And the fact is that teaching is really not a very lucractive job in the majority of places all around the country - I know it's an old platitude, but we probably really could attract better teachers by simply paying more, even without other reforms. So the simple fact is, the way things are now simply doesn't work - whether you feel the solution is just a straight increase of federal funding, an increase of charter type schools, or something else, everyone should recognize the current system's shortcomings.
But there's just a slight bit more contributing to why Mississippians may have the highest test scores in the nation of some tests (the ones the state of Mississippi writes) and near the lowest on others. That problem is the problem of inconsistent standards. Again, this is something of a political issue as well, as some people feel the federal government has no place in education - I'm not going to argue that here, but just point out the effects of the current system. The current system is basically that every state can set whatever standards it wants - even by the high school level, there is nothing nationally required for students, even tests like the SAT or ACT are voluntary (albeit important to post-secondary education). Anyone familiar with American colleges know how state-by-state differences work - some students will never have had to study a foreign language, some spent 4 years of high school in physical education classes, others none, etc... these things all vary by state. And I should add, not just for students, but teachers too - different places can have wildly different requirements, whether for education (masters degrees in education versus barely anything sometimes elsewhere) or other factors in the teachers jobs. All these things make for great inconsistencies in the American school system - so again, it's not really that the system doesn't work at all, it just doesn't work everywhere all the time.
And I will add a disclaimer that I haven't been employed/worked in education myself, I'm not claiming I have my only experience is having gone through it all recently, in the US, and kept up to date on education-related news. (so I may be lacking on, say, the elementary school perspective of the current Borg generation which apparently drills endlessly on the same things, and has a different cultural upbringing, what with being born with ipods embedded in their skulls and all
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