美国公立学校的发展越来越差。根据美国教育部国家测试，只有35%的美国高中生都精通阅读，基于2006个数据。只有不到一个在四，23%，精通数学。在全球舞台上，美国在世界上最大的工业化国家的教育成效，尽管在世界上每一个学生的最高消费。它提出了一个难题：如何最富有和最创新的社会在地球上突然失去的能力，教孩子在一个水平，其他现代国家认为“基本”？如果问题是我们没有足够的学校，许多人认为，研究美国州的花费比其他任何学生人均是有益的：新泽西的消费高达483000美元每课堂（NJ教育部门记录证实，新泽西学生2005-06）票价仅比读数学全国平均水平略好，平均SAT成绩和排名第三十七。即使NJ一半的高中新生，尽管国家的巨大的投资”，“学术准备上大学的四年后。事实上，大部分公众认为教师工资和整体教育预算是同一件事如果你是提高一个，你必须提高其他。但随着影片的播放，在许多情况下，80-90%的支出是教师工资以外的地方。事实上，数十亿美元，如独立审计所证实的，都是浪费。”卡特尔”调查是什么导致了这个巨大的成就和能做些什么来扭转乾坤。

　American public schools have been growing progressively worse. According to the U.S. Department of Education national testing, only 35% of American high school seniors are proficient in reading, based on 2006 data. And fewer than one-in-four, 23%, are proficient in math. On the global stage, America ranks last in educational effectiveness among large industrialized countries despite the highest spending per student in the world. It presents a conundrum: How has the richest and most innovative society on earth suddenly lost the ability to teach its children at a level that other modern countries consider "basic"? If the problem is that we're not spending enough on schools, which many people believe, it's instructive to study the U.S. state that spends more than any other per student: New Jersey With spending as high as $483,000 per classroom (confirmed by NJ Education Department records for 2005-06), New Jersey students fare only slightly better than the national average in reading and math, and rank 37th in average SAT scores. And not even half of NJ's high school freshmen, despite the state's enormous "investment," are academically ready for college four years later. The fact is much of the public considers teacher salaries and overall education budgets to be the same thing -- if you're for raising one, you must be for raising the other. But as the film shows, in many cases 80-90% of the spending goes somewhere besides teacher salaries. In fact billions of dollars, as confirmed by independent audits, are wasted. "The Cartel" investigates what is causing this vast underachievement and what can be done to turn things around.