&gt; I believe that public school systems should act as an equalizer against how you&#x27;re raised at home instead of compounding these problems.<p>That&#x27;s a commonly held belief, and I think it&#x27;s <i>a lot</i> to put on the public school system. As a teacher, when I wasn&#x27;t busy, you know, instructing, I was a mental health first responder, surrogate parent, law enforcer, stenographer, and so forth. I agree that, in general, social services should provide a baseline so that every child has a shot, regardless of what life situation they happen to be born into. I&#x27;m just not sure it&#x27;s fair for that to fall so heavily on the schools.<p>In practice, this is exactly what seems to happen. And I think this over-reliance is a big part of what brings down low income schools. Even within inner cities, there&#x27;s effect where the most prominent and successful schools tend to scoop up the kids with the greatest relative advantage and the most challenging students are pushed down to progressively more impoverished schools. We end up with multiple layers of elective and systemic segregation. As Paul Tough put it [1], there are big distinctions within poverty, with those who are the very worst off -- in &quot;deep poverty&quot; in Tough&#x27;s terminology -- often being the people least effectively served.<p>The neighborhood schools often serve as social glue within their communities, but they&#x27;re measured academically against schools in more affluent communities that have the privilege of being focused much so on being good educational centers. When these neighborhood schools are labeled as &quot;failing&quot; for academic underperformance, they&#x27;re closed down and it can be a very traumatic local event.<p>Now I&#x27;m not saying that schools that aren&#x27;t educating effectively shouldn&#x27;t be reformed, or sometimes shutdown. I&#x27;m just pointing out that the reality of the role they serve and all they&#x27;re doing isn&#x27;t typically acknowledged or supported.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;08&#x2F;19&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;obama-poverty.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;08&#x2F;19&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;obama-poverty.htm...</a>