What is your daily life experiences regarding this topic?
My personal experience (what I remember from High School, anyways) is that there is a stigma for children in school that is attached to enjoying science and knowledge. That stigma is one of "smart isn't "cool"". High Schools in the U.S. are more worried about winning the big football game than upping SAT scores. Any effort to up test scores does JUST that: trains kids how to pass a certain test. There is no real strive for kids to actually do well in school other than to meet a certain state requirement.
This also shows in the states where they are trying to institute teaching creationism in schools. There is a country wide disdain for knowledge (not everywhere, but a large enough population to make some impact). Intelligent folk are seen as "elitist" because so many people are plumb ignorant, so anyone smarter than them IS elite. Just look at how people chided Obama during the presidential debate for enunciating words and pronouncing Iraq and Pakistan properly.
Another problem is the cost of secondary education/college. If you want to get a decent college education, you need to either be an athlete (again, we push the importance of sports ahead of knowledge) or have rich ass parents. I knew by Junior High that I wouldn't be able to afford college, so dropping out of High School didn't seem to matter (I regretted it a month later and got my G.E.D. and aced that bitch).
Perhaps I am overgeneralizing, but this is my opinion.
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