I think it's generally agreed that the U.S. was the world's foremost economy and the home of many of the major innovations of the 20th century. I'm contending that our public education system was a major enabler of that creativity and productivity.
Simply because not everyone who innovated went to college doesn't negate the value of our public education system. Nearly everyone in the United States after World War Two went to public school for some time.
I wasn't saying college negated the value of public education at all. I was pointing out that a huge number of the people who contributed to US prosperity did not attend US public schools.
Einstein didn't attend the American public school system, nor did Dyson, or many of the other great scientists of the early 20'th century. In the present day, Sergei Brin only spent 4 years in US public schools. Elon Musk didn't, nor did Max Levchin (Thiel's wikipedia page is ambiguous). Zuckerberg didn't go to a public high school either (don't know what he did before that).
You can't point to a country with massive contributions from immigrants, and then declare that services those immigrants didn't use (or used minimally) are the cause of prosperity. The logic just doesn't work.
Enumerating a list of successful people who didn't attend public school doesn't say anything about the utility of the public school system, especially without looking at the people who did.
It also ignores the armies of undergraduates and computers (the human kind, mostly public school educated women sitting at adding machines) that made most American discoveries and inventions possible. Individuals do make some leaps, but on the whole it's massive collaboration that advances science and technology.
I'm not disputing the utility of the public school system. I certainly agree that literacy/numeracy is a good thing.
I'm disputing the idea that the public school system made the US into a "20th century powerhouse". If you want to attribute all of a person's success to the school they pass through, be my guest. I can similarly say the IRS is the cause of the US being a "20'th century powerhouse" - after all, 100% of US businesses are taxed by the IRS.
But the fact is, the US is fairly unique in terms of innovation and growth. The education system is, by most measures I've seen, fairly mediocre [1]. And additionally, a fairly large amount of our workforce, particularly at the higher ends, didn't even use the public education system. It seems like an extraordinary claim to attribute the success of the US to our public schools. Yeah, we need public schools/indoor plumbing/electricity, but it would be similarly silly to claim we are a powerhouse as a result of those services.
[1] As far as I'm aware, this was always the case. I know that during the Cold War, we were deathly afraid of the Soviets with their high test scores gaining a scientific advantage over us.
You also can't just look at the owners of major company's and think their background was the only thing that mattered. Drawing from a large, stable, educated workforce is a requirement for any large technology company to succeed.
PS: China and India both have huge public education systems.
