Disappearing education

I know Bliar famously suggested that his priorities were 3 x education, and now Flash has largely said the same thing.
I don't for one moment suggest they are cynically exploiting people's most ardent hopes for their children.
I do have to say, though, that there appears to be a real difference between the aspiration and the delivery. Diktat and dogma never got anyone anywhere, and what is needed is a streaming within each school and level of ability. Whether we get it or not probably depends on whether the Tories win the next election.
When I was last in Romania, I was talking with the Last Unreconstructed Communist. She would probably suggest she was actually a socialist, and intended only good things for pupils. The point she made was that if the teachers are not forthcoming, then education itself will slowly decline. We are already seeing this where some subjects are being dropped by universities for lack of interest, which is having a knock on effect at the lower levels as the teachers are no longer there to teach. Never mind the Polish plumbers, it'll be the Polish Maths teachers pretty soon.
This country has always been bad at denigrating those who are educated, or special or making an upward path. We always denigrate ourselves if we know something. The diffidence with which University professors profess to know nothing about their subjects is wondrous to behold. We are more interested in glorifying the banal and promoting the commonplace types, with whom the majority can identify.
Whatever you may think of America, at least they attempt to be upwardly mobile. That's the American Dream.
What's the UK equivalent?