What is it like being an alumni of a school that’s underfunded or neglected? Even if the school is “good” (as in well funded or private), does the learning environment reflect that? Also, the dark side of American schools (shootings) dampens peace of mind for parents since at any given moment some gun wielding individual can storm in murdering those inside (students, teachers, custodians, etc.)


In the Des Moines area all the difference schools share the same funding. Some schools are still vastly better than others.
As I’ve said before the largest factor seems to be parents that don’t value education teach their kids to not learn much in school.
the largest factor is how rich your parents are. parental income overwhelmingly predicts student outcome, like 90% of it.
Only about 10 percent of students are gifted or ungifted enough to significantly over or under perform the baseline their parental income establishes
That doesn’t establish a cause though. well off parents teach their kids to value education.
No, they pay the schools to do that for them.