Just goes to show, no bucks, no Buck Rogers.
Not really. I have been a number of places where the school was a one room shack with a chock board. Primary school was in the morning, secondary school was in the afternoon. The kids shared books and practiced their lessons in the dirt floor.
Yet all the kids could read and write. They could diagram sentences, they studied geometry and algebra. Most spoke two languages if not more. They study history, geography and science.
Of course, education is valued there, unlike some other places.
Just goes to show, no bucks, no Buck Rogers.
I strongly disagree with that. The Newark NJ schools spend about as much as the Princeton schools (10 to 11,000 per), which is well above the NJ average (~8 I think). The results are not comparable. The schools in the southern, rural part of the state spend a good deal less than that and have above average results. Good parents will tend to make sure their kids get educated (whether the kids inherited any smarts or not).
$$ doesn't start the education cycle, though that is usually the goal and happens often enough to keep the cycle going.
Money follows education, not the other way around. The move 'October Sky' was about some of the Buck Roger's types working for NASA on the space program came from Appalachian coal miners. It isn't a unique story.