This article does not mention education as the cause, which I personally has to be the most important cause of declining creativity across the American society. My older daughter is in 2nd grade. I think from my eyes that the STEM education is about fun, not the hard-and-cold reasoning. For example, algebra is taught with tricks, not simply what they are, and the ugly rules that underpins those human invention (math is a human invention of describing the physical world).

And as Ray Dalio mentioned, education is not a federal responsibility, nor is the federal government allowed to exercise influence. Then we are left with declining education across the board.

It's just not possible to revert the trend, if the root of everything was allowed to be ignored. One cannot fix a sinking building by fixing anything other than the foundation!