> I do believe that the kids in the lower-rated schools must feel a positive effect, mingling with highly-motivated, better-educated kids. It may do away with the whole "study is uncool, real kids hate school" vibe that holds many "bad neighborhood" schools back.
That's the logic, but it doesn't pan out. IMO it's because 1) by high school it's too late--kids already segregate themselves and the ones with strong study habits will tend to hide them. In America generally the culture is for upper classes to pretend they're anything but, coopting the styles and mannerisms of the lower classes, especially Black culture (which in American culture is almost by definition low status yet valorized).
I grew up poor, with zero structure at home. It wasn't until I was mid-way through college when I realized the people around me actually studied and did their homework. I just didn't see it because they all pretended otherwise, then snuck off with their higher class peers, almost like secret rituals.
Contrast that with, e.g. East Asian culture. I remember the first time I visited Singapore and saw a group of elementary school kids, without supervision, congregating at a McDonalds do to their homework together.
My daughter goes to a Chinese immersion public school in SF. It's mostly Asian, but there's actually a sizable minority of black students there. Like their slightly more numerous white peers, they tend have a parent (or relative--grandmother, aunt, etc) who made a very deliberate decision and who provides the necessary structure and support at home. Home support is key because, talking with those parents, not even by 8th grade does the feeling of being different disappear; it's very taxing, and without constant encouragement kids will slip back into their comfort zone. It's entirely unreasonable to drop a poor white, black, or 4th generation Asian kid off at that school and expect them to adopt and internalize the culture without significant support at home. By contrast, the recently immigrated Asians fit right in regardless of class or wealth.
Now imagine dropping a few smart students with strong study habits and support networks off at a school where most kids don't have those benefits. It's never going to move the needle.
I just got back from Malaysia, where the majority Muslim Malay population benefits from government programs in ways that would be unfathomable to all but the most leftist Americans. 50 years from independence, excepting for the most wealthy, cosmopolitan strata, the country is as racially and economically stratified and segregated as it ever was. AFAIU, the situation is similar in South Africa.
I'm onboard with the idea that diversity and breaking the structures of inequality are laudable goals, but so far nobody has figured out to socially engineer that outcome. Culture is like a newtonian fluid; you apply pressure and things tend to become even more rigid and less fluid. It's not just the privileged who push back, it's the social underclasses that also push back; they're no less invested in their identity. Change, when it comes about, tends to only happen organically in ways we haven't figured out how to induce.
I no longer advocate for affirmative action programs, though I don't like dropping what programs we have. Constantly changing the rules creates its own burdens and unfairness that probably exceed the costs of keeping them. Better to just let them quietly recede into the background where they can continue helping a small minority of people capable of leveraging them.