American basic education is not backward. Subjects are probably measured by exam-oriented education. But American education emphasizes quality, no matter how many questions you do or how many points you get. For example, there is a lawsuit in the United States. The parents of a kindergarten child sued the teacher for teaching the child the letter "O", which damaged the child's creative thinking. There is another story. During the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, USA, representatives from various countries were invited to hold activities with local schools, one for each country, and representatives from China were also invited to participate in the activities of a primary school. Representative China prepared prizes according to China's way, and prepared them for the best students. However, there are no best students in that school. The school explained that their children are the best. As a result, China's prize was not given out, but was taken back. This is the basic education in America. Only on this basis can we support strong scientific research. On the contrary, the United States will say that China's basic education is backward, so it knows that it ranks low in the scoring and its actual ability is almost zero. So China's scientific research is always unsatisfactory.
Finally, I want to say that you can't evaluate it from your own point of view. In fact, each country's education system is different. With its wealth and free and open system after World War II, the United States has made the world's best talents keep pouring into the United States, including those from China. The scientific research strength of the United States ranks first in the world and no one can shake it. But the world is also cruel. No country in history, forever strong, has ups and downs forever. Look at today, the United States is not as good as it was at the beginning, and it will be overtaken by other countries in the future. This is a trend that no one can stop! Our country must attach importance to education and scientific research, and must not let stars blind young people. Nowadays, media and TV are one-sided propaganda stars, not to mention advertisements. Their income far exceeds that of scientists. The above is my answer, I hope it will help you.