 "Flunked" studies the relatively poor position of the United States public education system; in the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment, the country's mean performance was merely average among the OECD member states tested, and according to a 2015 survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, just 16% of them called American K-12 STEM education above average or best.The film also, though, explores some of the system's successes.The first 20 minutes review many of the system's problems, as well as schools nationwide that prepared students well for college in the 2000s.