No small part of the credit for what's wrong with U.S. education, our economy and society can be credited to 30-plus years of acceptance of an approach to life in our society:

"I'll get mine, you get yours and to hell with everyone else."

It's the idea that America is for real go-getters. You know, Horatio Alger stories come to life. Everyone loves to win with a winner.

Trouble is, people fall somewhere on a spectrum that has Bill Gateses and Donald Trumps at one end and a homeless panhandler who lives in a carboard box under a bridge at the other end.

Trouble is, some kids will learn rapidly and well, even in a mediocre school with less-than-terrific teachers. Most kids have their good subjects and their not-so-good subjects, school and teacher quality notwithstanding.

Then you've got kids who are just plain slow to learn, uncomfortable or alienated in a typical school setting, and easily embarrassed and discouraged. These kids need all the motivation, reinforcement and carefully paced teaching they can get. Even then, few if any will go on to a brilliant career in college. Just getting a high school diploma by age 18 will be a big accomplishment.

I believe the fast learners will learn fast, no matter what. Most kids in the middle will do tolerably well and, if they choose, be able to handle college.

But some in the middle and nearly all who are slow to learn and don't handle school well will quit high school as soon as they can — at tremendous loss to themselves, their family, community and the whole country.

These needy kids will never thrive in an atmosphere of "I'll get mine . . . etc." They might be able to thrive in an environment that emphasizes cooperative group effort, teamwork and supporting one another with encouragement and sometimes consolation.

That's not generally the American way. It's not considered macho enough, cool enough, heroic enough. It sounds too much like pop psychology and is too liberal-like to suit about half the country.

So, you might say succeeding generations of poor students, of high school dropouts, are victims of attitude — the public's as much or more than their own.

Improving the situation means changing a whole lot of attitudes, especially among conservative Republicans.
 

There's no question conservative Republicans have no answers other than calling the teachers' unions "terrorists". They tried vouchers, faith-based schools, they want guns for teachers, they pushed same-sex schools... clearly stupid, reactionary moves that will not solve a damn thing.

We'll have to wait till the grow-ups take over and hope they have the common sense to address these issues properly.

What should we do? How about starting with the most obvious answer: we may not really know, but we know that destroying the public school system is not it. Let's start there.