Excellent point...and I have to say reading through this thread there are so many good points being brought up, but I think there are a decent amount of parents out there who almost expect teachers to be parents as well...and then these parents, who are so damn full of themselves and too lazy to discipline their own kids...put the blame on the teachers.
Discipline to do well in school comes from HOME more then anything else..and that IMO is a very, VERY big problem in the USA today...have you seen the way some of these kids act today? Even at a veyr young age...no respect whatsover for anything...no respect for authority at ALL...and when there is a lack of discipline at home...you bet that runs over into the classroom.
Simply put, these are two big things that have to happen in order for the youth of today to improve on scores and become more intelligent:
1. Overall more involvement from parents in their kids's life...setting good examples etc.
2. Make the courses in school more demanding, challenge kids and stop labeling everything so quickly as a disorder when they cannot do something.