I like the idea that every child deserves a school that has a culture conducive to learning, just as every child deserves to be taught at their level.
This far, and this far only, I agree with you.
In my view, you are lumping many factors into SES that are best treated separately.
Most troubling to me is the idea that poor children drag down the system for "our" children. I am committed to that idea that "all children should get an appropriate education." That is a far cry from saying that poor children should generally get less opportunity because they are less capable. That is the language of inferiority we've heard all too often in the past, and in my view, thinking this way does not help children-- "ours" or "theirs."
(NB: They're all "ours"-- our neighbors, our students, our eventual colleagues, and the nurse who will look after us when we need her.)
