"We are turning out a generation of young people who are unhappy, unhealthy, engaging in risky behaviour, who have poor relationships with their family and their peers, who have low expectations and don't feel safe." Current government policies, on the whole, encourage the least competent parents to have more children and the more competent parents to limit their involvement with their children. We mandate attendence at child warehouses to ensure interaction with the unkempt and the unruly. We subsidize failure and fail to encourage excellence. And we promote gang violence. What else could we possibly expect? (This foregoing any chest-thumping comments about measurement bias, which could be not only a factor, but even the largest factor, in our poor ranking, in favor of discussing the actual shortfalls of how we handle our children.)