Why education cannot be a national priority

For any visitor with a flavor for ethnography, the United States is a land of striking contradictions.
The very outcome of the coming election is itself a classical American excercise in contradiction (and a reminder of the complex legal and political structure that makes these contradictions possible): a liberal politician like Obama, and a liberal democratic Congress will preside over what is actually a conservative (and hence pro-Republican) society.
In the recent debates between Mc Cain and Obama the question of education emerged as one of these contradictory sites of American life. The moderator put forward the following question: we are the country that expends more money per student in the world and yet the results are far from good. American students tend to underperform when compared to students from countries as different as Norway or South Korea. What would you do to correct this problem?

Provided that these statistics are meaningful (something I personally doubt) the answers of both candidates failed to address what constitute in my opinion the cultural root of the problem (and justly so, they are politicians trying to win an election, not intellectuals trying to explain the world). Obama’s solution for the American lagging-behind in education is more investment; Mc Cain’s more accountability.

What no candidate said is that the reason why student’s performance is better in Norway or South Korea may lie in the fact that in those countries education is a highly recognized social and cultural value. In other words, I suspect that in Norway or South Korea being educated, intelligent or cultivated is a ground for respect while often in the US the same attributes are perceived as the mark of a moral flaw or a revelation of a dubiousness of character. Only two weeks ago the front page on-line version of CNN asked if the label of “intellectual” may hurt Obama. This label of "intellectual” is itself interesting. It seems to mean that Obama has a surprising tendency to think problems over. It also seems to suggest that he is not straight ignorant as could be expected from somebody who wants to be president of the most powerful country in the world.

To the gallery of contradictions of American culture the ethnographer of modern life has to add this one: an anti-intellectual culture living side by side with a genuine concern for education.