re: The real fundamental underlying issue in our country is Education

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Access isn't the issue, it's the mindset of the individual and the culture they grow up in.

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Well not just that. That's part of it, sure. But their culture sees no need to participate in the institution of high stakes testing on very specific and niche standards. There's no reward for what they're actually good at.

I think that's where we need to start over. Ask the struggling communities to succeed in what they know then build them up to the standards we'd like for them to meet. Instead we're criticizing them for not seeing the value in reading complex texts, knowing standardized English, and applying basic math skills. To them, those are useless goals to have mostly because all those goals do is remind them of their failures.