^ Is that system for how money is distributed still in place?
Which also goes back to your earlier point about money not being an issue. In many countries there are state-funded free colleges. That makes a huuuuuge difference. Both my parents were from working class families and the only way my mother was able to go to college was because NYC's were free at the time (which isn't the case now). (My father's college was paid for by the Air Force.)
There's also the poor salary of teachers, or rather they go where the pay is better. For example I know one can make more teaching on Long Island than here in the city.
You might find this interesting. I went to
this middle school which I only just learned was founded as a court-ordered experiment in racial integration.
And there's that whole deal with Texas dictating what goes into the country's text books which is messed up on a number of levels (and was discussed in an earlier thread). We can go into the Christian right hijacking science as well, so even a child who wants to learn might be getting the wrong information.
There are a ton of other factors too which could easily be improved (and would of course require more money), such as longer school days, or shorter vacations (kids forget so much over the summer break). There was an article about some Korean school in the NYTimes maybe a year or two ago. They spent about 12 hours at school 6 days a week. Now that's what I'm talking about.