Let's start at a 50,000 ft view.
More than a decade ago I read a book (How Children Succeed) which delved into the subject quite a bit. There was some aspects about how children who had been placed in non-traditional schools (Waldorf/Montessori if if recall correctly) had significantly lower rates of mental health issues even when these were serving the same socioeconomic (and demographic) backgrounds. So if you wanted to talk about this then we would really need our teachers to pipe in because this is really their domain.
However the book and subsequent material that I have come across, states the most dominant indicator for academic performance is wealth but there were some caveats. The rates of drug use were similar amongst the poors as the elites, however the impact of this was not even, and the academic performance still improved with wealth accounting for this (IIRC).
Let's zoom in a bit to what you said earlier and the quoted section above.
Would you consider your son to be relatively successful in his academic career? When we talked earlier, you mentioned that you had the advantage of being able to only minimally be involved with is education, just setting expectations for the most part. How does that jive with parental involvement from what you said in this post I quoted? Or did you mean that just being involved in a non-academic manner?
Also in the quoted section above, are some generalizations (we suck as a society, electorate, parents...) that I think are kind of a cop-out. Because they are nonspecific, mostly anecdotal derived opinions, and non-actionable. I think this type of thinking shirks responsibility not accepts it. It guides us to throw are hands up and do nothing or gives us an excuse for doing nothing, or minimize the issue and the involvement of people we voted for who participate in actions we disagree with.
If economics are the key performance issue then it would seem that the overwhelming issues would be related to our tax and income disparity within the U.S. As we look at the current wealth distribution and how the wealth distribution has changed since the 1940s we can see how policies have helped shape this new era. So this would be a completely political in order to impact it at the macroscale. And doing so might make us have to re-evaluate our beliefs and priorities.
At the regional scale, the economic factors still exist. But then we are looking at other issues which were intentional and politically motivated that we do have the power to influence and change (since we cannot vote for every member of Congress). The reduction of SPED identification and the hoops that parents have to go through to get services is intended to frustrate and push that number of students to receive that aid down. This is a systemic issue. No one is advocating for 30% of students to receive SPED access/money. But some of us are interested in making sure that the kids who need help get it and that we live up to the ideal that students receive a free and appropriate education (FAPE). This issue is not trivial. And students with behavioral challenges or students with learning challenges will have an impact on the overall performance of the class.
Anecdote Warning: My son was in class with a kid who had emotional outbursts and could be violent. The kid had a medical diagnoses and needed help. He was relocated to a more appropriate school eventually but on his mother's dime. $40k a year. This is an unreal sum of money when the average salary in the US is $60k. How can people afford this and still be involved?
At HISD, Miles is going to rate teachers based on their testing performance. While cutting special education and other services. So this pushes more responsibility onto the teachers. Those kids who are not getting services and have behavioral or learning challenges are going to hurt teachers ratings as well. Meanwhile Miles and his crones are exempt from similar performance reviews by the people that pay his salary.
So yes Slorch, this is political. Because one political group decided to weaponize education and funding, either to hurt a county that votes oppositional to the current leadership within the state, or to simply try to siphon money from the public into the hands of their allies while likely reducing value and accountability and increasing costs, or just because they can. Whatever the reason, I am personally heavily impacted by it (time, stress, money) and my story is not special or unique in any way. We have found this out by reaching out to others in our communities.