The claim that 'the miracle year' is some fundamental rule in scientific discovery and that people's best work is always done in some flurry of creativity in their younger years is the kind of claim that might sell magazine articles - it's simple to understand, you can cherry-pick a few examples, and that might get you some mass appeal.<p>However there are a very large number of counterexamples, starting with Einstein himself, who went on to spend 15 grueling years working out general relativity, an effort which relied heavily on previous mathematical development of non-Euclidean geometry by the likes of mathematicians like Riemann. Here's that story:<p><a href="https://thewire.in/science/beyond-the-surface-of-einsteins-relativity-lay-a-chimerical-geometry" rel="nofollow">https://thewire.in/science/beyond-the-surface-of-einsteins-r...</a><p>Another counterexample is that of James C. Maxwell, probably the most important theoretical physicist of the 19th century, whose synthesis of previous work on electricity and magnetism into a coherent whole was a 20-year process at least, and the form we see Maxwell's equations in today is due to later efforts by others:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Maxwell%27s_equations" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Maxwell%27s_equatio...</a><p>> "Later, Oliver Heaviside studied Maxwell's A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism and employed vector calculus to synthesize Maxwell's over 20 equations into the 4 recognizable ones which modern physicists use. Maxwell's equations also inspired Albert Einstein in developing the theory of special relativity. The experimental proof of Maxwell's equations was demonstrated by Heinrich Hertz in a series of experiments in the 1890s. After that, Maxwell's equations were fully accepted by scientists."<p>Another counterexample: Erwin Schrodinger of quantum mechanical wave equation fame, who did his most important work in his late 30s, and again it was developed over a relatively long period of time, c. 1920-1926.<p>Maybe the story of the young genius with the brilliant idea is pleasing, and yes it may happen from time to time, but the actual history of scientific discovery generally doesn't fit this simple stereotype.<p>As far as why the American public education system is generally viewed as being of low quality, well, we might want to start by making teaching as economically lucrative and competitive a profession as say, doctoring or lawyering or software developing.