When I went through middle/high school about a decade ago, the curriculum for honors students in Texas was: algebra in 7th/8th grade, geometry/trigonometry in 9th grade, pre-calculus (aka calculus lite) in 10th grade, advanced algebra 11th grade, and in 12th grade you had the option to take calculus or statistics (or both).
From my experience, at least, my math education was astoundingly good. I went to a top 50 US university and immediately went into advanced math classes my freshman year and felt fine. The problem, though, is that I followed the "honors student" curriculum. The "regulars students" curriculum didn't include advanced algebra, calc, or stats, and the quality of geom/trig/algebra education that was included wasn't that great.
Another problem is that this was just my experience in Texas. Other states have different curriculums, which makes the whole exercise of saying "education in the US is ____" very difficult.
From my experience, at least, my math education was astoundingly good. I went to a top 50 US university and immediately went into advanced math classes my freshman year and felt fine. The problem, though, is that I followed the "honors student" curriculum. The "regulars students" curriculum didn't include advanced algebra, calc, or stats, and the quality of geom/trig/algebra education that was included wasn't that great.
Another problem is that this was just my experience in Texas. Other states have different curriculums, which makes the whole exercise of saying "education in the US is ____" very difficult.