I agree. This is why in Finland they made it law that nobody can not go to public education (a slight oversimplification). For exactly this reason. And they con

I agree. This is why in Finland they made it law that nobody can not go to public education (a slight oversimplification). For exactly this reason. And they continue to diligently deny any attempts to game the system via strict court rulings. It even got to a point where kids wanted to swap schools due to them having less travel time, but the court said that this has the potential to lead to the wealthy using these exact arguments to send their kids to a local school which would be superior to other schools and thus defeat the entire point of the system. It is a lot of diligence but it is done for _exactly_ the reason you stated. What I found interesting, is people look at the finnish education system and say "oh, if we did away with tests" or whatever... but the answer is, it has nothing to do with tests. It has everything to do with the thousands of small details that only get taken care of because the entire society is committed to making it work because _everyone_ is in it, so everyone has to fight for it, including the politicians who set policy and the elites.