It's a hard topic, and it certainly is not made easier by repeating old cliches that has been proven false repeatedly. Throwing money at bad schools does not ma

It's a hard topic, and it certainly is not made easier by repeating old cliches that has been proven false repeatedly. Throwing money at bad schools does not make them good. There are plenty of terrible schools spending as much money as the best ones, with no results. It's not a money question - at least not alone. Yes, there are correlation between academic success and living in a rich neighborhood. Because yes, rich successful people often pass on their success to their children. But it's not solved by just dumping money on poor schools and hoping that would solve everything. It has been tried. Unions love it. Kids don't get any better. In fact, the whole "structural inequality" thing was roped in to explain this phenomenon - why tons of money are being spent with no observable result? Oh, it must be the invisible and immeasurable "structural inequality"! Which means we should shut down the gifted programs (so rare students that manage to overcome the awfulness of their schools have no recourse now), introduce race-based school policies and let students that barely can (and sometimes can't) read graduate. That surely will make them successful.