It's difficult to get too far into the topic of international rankings without getting into modern politics but it's safe to say that this particular person is looking to advance a particular (fairly misleading) message. This is to say, it can be true if we look at a particular set of data but it's functionally meaningless. I've written before about the history of the United States Education Department and the tl;dr is that the creation of the department was more an organizational shift than a policy change to anything that happened in American schools. From an older response : The creation of the Education Department (technically USED, technically USDOE is the United States Department of Energy) was mostly an organizational change related to existing structures. Henry Barnard, recognized as one of the founders of the common school movement, and the National Teachers Association (later the National Educational Association) advocated for a federal bureau following the Civil War. In effect, they saw the bureau's role as a support mechanism for Western and Southern states and territories looking to establish schools and education systems, similar to how the Department of Agriculture was set up to support farmers. The Bureau served primarily as an information warehouse and data collection system. Staff traveled around the country and wrote reports detailing budgets, infrastructure, salaries, textbooks, demographics, and more. There were attempts to abolish the Bureau but chiefs and various Congressmen fought for its sustained existence for a variety of reasons, including the argument that it benefitted Congress to have a sense of the national landscape of education, and the only people who could do that was the federal government. The Bureau picked up additional responsibilities as time passed, including the management of schools in the Alaska Territory, the Indian Boarding Schools, Department of Defense schools, and some international educational oversight. In 1952, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) was created, including the United States Office of Education. The office was given additional responsibilities, including the management of federal funds for districts including for those that included military bases within their attendance zones. By this point, every state in the country had its own state education system, including, in most cases, preliminary requirements around curriculum frameworks (known in today's parlance as "standards.") Which is to say, the foundations for what American education looked like was fairly well-established through policy at state level and cultural transmission by the 1950s. The launch of Sputnik in 1957 changed dynamics in American schools related to math and Science in (a little more on that here ) and the USOE helped provide grants to states for math and science teachers' professional development and new textbooks. However, the USOE wasn't the only place in the federal government dealing with education. There was an office in the Department of Defense that dealt with schools on military bases, the Department of the Interior, National Science Foundation, etc. The Department of Educational Reorganization Act passed by Congress and signed by President Carter in 1979 sought to streamline, organize, and increase the role of the federal government in education. This Act also created a new cabinet position, The Secretary of Education. Almost immediately, there was pushback from the Republican Congress. Students didn't really see an impact of the Office on their daily lives. The most common way, though, a young person would cross paths with the office was if something was going wrong. A combination of the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, and the Educational for All Handicapped Children in 1975 led to a need for an Office of Civil Rights inside the ED. The office, also created in 1979, positioned the federal government as an ally to students. That is, students and their families who felt a district was infringing on their Civil Rights - and the state wasn't responding or disagreed - could turn to the newly formed USED for legal support.

It's difficult to get too far into the topic of international rankings without getting into modern politics but it's safe to say that this particular person is looking to advance a particular (fairly misleading) message. This is to say, it can be true if we look at a particular set of data but it's functionally meaningless. I've written before about the history of the United States Education Department and the tl;dr is that the creation of the department was more an organizational shift than a policy change to anything that happened in American schools. From an older response : The creation of the Education Department (technically USED, technically USDOE is the United States Department of Energy) was mostly an organizational change related to existing structures. Henry Barnard, recognized as one of the founders of the common school movement, and the National Teachers Association (later the National Educational Association) advocated for a federal bureau following the Civil War. In effect, they saw the bureau's role as a support mechanism for Western and Southern states and territories looking to establish schools and education systems, similar to how the Department of Agriculture was set up to support farmers. The Bureau served primarily as an information warehouse and data collection system. Staff traveled around the country and wrote reports detailing budgets, infrastructure, salaries, textbooks, demographics, and more. There were attempts to abolish the Bureau but chiefs and various Congressmen fought for its sustained existence for a variety of reasons, including the argument that it benefitted Congress to have a sense of the national landscape of education, and the only people who could do that was the federal government. The Bureau picked up additional responsibilities as time passed, including the management of schools in the Alaska Territory, the Indian Boarding Schools, Department of Defense schools, and some international educational oversight. In 1952, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) was created, including the United States Office of Education. The office was given additional responsibilities, including the management of federal funds for districts including for those that included military bases within their attendance zones. By this point, every state in the country had its own state education system, including, in most cases, preliminary requirements around curriculum frameworks (known in today's parlance as "standards.") Which is to say, the foundations for what American education looked like was fairly well-established through policy at state level and cultural transmission by the 1950s. The launch of Sputnik in 1957 changed dynamics in American schools related to math and Science in (a little more on that here ) and the USOE helped provide grants to states for math and science teachers' professional development and new textbooks. However, the USOE wasn't the only place in the federal government dealing with education. There was an office in the Department of Defense that dealt with schools on military bases, the Department of the Interior, National Science Foundation, etc. The Department of Educational Reorganization Act passed by Congress and signed by President Carter in 1979 sought to streamline, organize, and increase the role of the federal government in education. This Act also created a new cabinet position, The Secretary of Education. Almost immediately, there was pushback from the Republican Congress. Students didn't really see an impact of the Office on their daily lives. The most common way, though, a young person would cross paths with the office was if something was going wrong. A combination of the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, and the Educational for All Handicapped Children in 1975 led to a need for an Office of Civil Rights inside the ED. The office, also created in 1979, positioned the federal government as an ally to students. That is, students and their families who felt a district was infringing on their Civil Rights - and the state wasn't responding or disagreed - could turn to the newly formed USED for legal support.