I made the point of calling the whole situation 'poverty'.

You make a valid claim that urban schools have highest per-capita expenditures, which I accept.

However, no amount of school funding can fix: violence/crime, food deserts, poverty wages, parent(s) working multiple jobs and not enough parent-child time, or all the other trappings of poverty not explicitly in schools.

Free breakfast/lunch would definitely help, at least in terms of nutrition and hunger.

But we're past just pumping a district with cash to fix it. We would need to pump the whole community to fix the disease of poverty to start turning the academic performance around.

The downside? Fixing poverty proper takes longer than politicians are elected in. Well, that and "those people shouldn't get freebies, cause that's socialism".

("Those people" is obviously barely coded language for ghetto black people. Howls of socialism and not deserving aid. Glad I never had children.)

Agreed on all points.