Its like you've never lived in America.
Obviously white people are extremely privileged and also have a different culture. Keep in mind that schools in predominantly black areas are typically significantly less funded than those in white areas.
Why is this obviously? It's like /you've/ never lived in America, not outside of some coastal city. Go to anywhere in the Midwest or Southeast and tell me that white people are privileged in some unique way. It's a poverty problem and a problem of cultural priorities, not about race.
A lot of people just don't understand what privilege is. Who has more upward mobility - an impoverished black person, or an impoverished white person? Who is more likely to face systemic factors that influence poverty and outcomes - black people or white people?
And before I hear "well not everything is about race!!1!" Uh, the US has a long history of systemic racism that does continue to this day.
Obviously if you just integrated a few decades ago you're not going to just magically have equal outcomes. People don't move like that, systems are sticky, and the US isn't evenly distributed.
And, of course, race is correlated tightly with culture and with average income and levels of poverty.
No, you can't just ignore race. Well you can, if that's easier for you, but it's dishonest and incomplete.
And, because I know it's coming: yes I'm white, no I don't have white guilt, I just think about the world we live in. Its easy not to think about things. I prefer thinking about things.
If what you say about racism, etc., is true, that is actually an argument against the cultural explanation. That would mean that educational underperformance compared to other countries is caused by internal racism in the U.S., not some anti-educational trend across American culture as a whole. If you somehow erased racism and brought everyone up to the scores of white Americans, then the U.S. would be right behind Japan in educational outcomes—even though the Americans care more about football than reading.
Also, only about 5 states have significantly more funding for white students once you consider federal funds. About twice as many have significantly more funding for black students: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2022-10/Measuring%... (see page 22).
Spending per student is not partially predictive of education outcomes in the USA.