We have universal healthcare and welfare and it doesn't stop us having a 10 to 20 % tail of failing students and an increasing incidence of poverty diseases such as TB and rheumatic fever. We don't have high wages though so maybe that is the deciding factor - if both parents work long hours at poorly paid jobs there is little time with the kids. Kids who go to after school card every day miss such things as dance and swimming even if there was enough money.
But she should be railing against priveledge not gifted programmes. Average children from a secure home whose parents inverest in their education will do much better than a brighter child who can't study because they are in charge of their siblings or there is nowhere quiet enough and whose parents can't or don't support them.
