So why educate poor kids? The exceptional will rise to the top regardless or emigrate to the US as long as we make it attractive to anyway. If all that matters is GDP and relative geopolitical strength of course.
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." - Stephen Jay Gould
Developing talent is necessary, and many don't have the circumstances for their talent to be visible.
Maybe 100 years ago, or in remote villages in developing countries.
In America there's such an abundance of opportunity that talented people generally aren't going to be constrained by anything other than ambition. Certainly not by education.
Many of histories famous scholars had no formal education whatsoever, they were autodidactics.
That's an illustration of the worldview where you only care about the exceptional in action. There has to be an interest in having a healthy and enjoyable society among all ranks, and care about more than just cutting edge science and engineering.
