More wealth/economic security, safe environment, conscientious and attentive parents, good community of role models, peer kids with good parents as well = decent students.
In other words - children are reared by their parents, as they always have (!) and their academic achievement is mostly a function of their upbringing. Sure, some kids hate school or are bad at at even with good parents. Some schools are better than others ...
... but if you have 'decent community, decent parents, decent regular public school' then 'the kids will be ok'.
The discussion in some ways should be more about good jobs, stabilizing dangerous neighbourhoods, flushing out gangs, giving troubled kids a place to hang out + role models, making the learning environment safe where kids can focus on learning.
I just don't believe that the solution to education has much to do with 'teacher quality' or 'competitive teaching' or some kind of new-fangled special kind of education, or even exceptional schools.
More controversially I would say that schools aren't even mostly about learning, other than some very basic mathematical, historical and geographic literacy, schools are mostly about socialization, language and communication. Effectively, kids learn how to communicate (in English, but it's more than just spoken written word), how to behave, 'how to learn something' i.e. not the knowledge, but the processing of learning/doing tasks, basic responsibilities and organization. The 'details' of most subjects are simply less important. Nobody cares if someone has memorized every state capital, but we do care that people are ready, engaged, can focus, communicate, accomplish things etc..