This is because most Asian cultures considered being a scholar to be the highest achievable position, whereas Western cultures generally considered being physically powerful to be the best thing (at least, as far as I know). In this modern world, the Asian idea of being a scholar is basically resulting in the Asian cultures getting ahead a lot more. China's literacy rate is higher than the USA's, for example. Even those who don't get to the top universities and are seen as being "successful" are still quite highly educated and will work hard at getting their children educated too. (this is a blanket statement that won't be correct to ALL asians or westerners of course)

This statement leads me to believe that you are not Asian. (or at the very least I am a better "scholar" than you?)
China's literacy rate is not higher than the USA's.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2103.html
For China:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 91.6%
male: 95.7%
female: 87.6% (2007)

For United States
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99%
male: 99%
female: 99% (2003 est.)

The stats I saw in a magazine said that the US had a lower literacy rate than that, but I guess that was made up or else the online resources at wikipedia and the cia etc are outdated.

Someone on the last page was going on about Ipads helping students learn, and I thought that was pretty funny. All this talk about incredibly large sums of money and technology, and you're missing the point of what education is... not 'education' as we've seen it functioning as the nation's infrastructure, but the actual process of learning something. It's not a matter of money or technology.

To learn something, there is only two things you need: A willingness to learn, and a teacher capable of teaching it.

Nerds ><