I'm not sure anybody can interpret those results to claim that throwing money at schools solves any issues.
A massive project was undertaken in Kansas City a few years ago to prove that very point, it was a massive failure.
Closer to home, look at the Washington, D.C. schools. Per pupil, they may be the highest funded school system in the country.
Its hard to determine for sure, because they get so much aid for schools from nontraditional (and hard to track) sources.
But, for the sake of argument we'll just say that its per pupil funding is one of the highest in the nation, yet they have the lowest overall test scores, worse than even Arkansas or Mississippi.
I think the better test scores from schools in higher income neighborhoods reflect primarily the more intellectually rich homes these children grow up in - their parents are doctors, lawyers, engineers, successful businessmen, etc., etc.
Children from these neighborhoods are more likely to grow up in two-parent households. And they are exposed to more intellectually enriching experiences via associations with other advantaged children, going on vacations, traveling to Europe, going to summer camp, attending plays, concerts and after school activities such as ballet and music lessons.
For example, children from more affluent families are far more articulate and have much higher reading comprehension scores than can be attributed solely to their school environment. By contrast, many children of the ghetto can barely speak intelligible English.
As long as we are a capitalist society, I don't know how to fix this.
We would have to implement some futuristic Logan's Run program where after children are weaned, they are taken off site to be raised equally by the government.
There really is something to the concept of the silver spoon in one's mouth.
One thing we do need to do, is ensure teachers are considered true professionals and are paid professional wages.
Then, we need to test them and hold them accountable for professional performance too.
And, we need to get these corrupt unions out of the picture.
Bill Bennett has written extensively suggesting what we should do -- we should have meaningful curricula, tough academic standards, stop the agendas of political correctness and outcome based scenarios that focus more on how the child feels than what they learn.
Nothing new here.
There's not too much we can do about their dysfunctional home environments, but we can do a lot to make sure all children have an equal opportunity to receive a quality public education while they're at the schoolhouse.