But thats not a representative place either. In the US you can generally move a few miles and find an excellent school district. But that is a function of the local population. The schools are good because of who goes to them; bad schools are bad mainly because their input is bad.
Yes and no. Our country has always had some amount of problems stemming from kids who are from troubled families. However, the most drastic change in the behavior of school children and the effect on schools came in the late 1980's when middle-class mothers began to leave home en masse to seek employment. Wealthier kids were now home alone. Dual-income parents began to spend more money on their children to make up for not being there with them. These kids turned into monsters and grew up with feelings of entitlement. The stability of the middle class base was gone. Schools in the best of neighborhoods suffered. Sexual harrassment guidelines were studied and put in place in schools. Then it was drugs and guns and breatholyzers at the Prom. It will get worse before it gets better.