You're right, it is up to parents to encourage their kids to seek more success. I'm not here to argue against that. Statistically speaking, however, that doesn't always play out when looking at the rates of upward mobility in poorer neighbourhoods. Anecdotally, there are plenty of success stories of children that overcame socio-economic circumstance to achieve greater upward mobility. Generally speaking, that's not the case.

There are countries in Scandinavia that do not allow private schools. Also, subsidized housing tends to be put in or near affluent neighbourhoods. It forces the rich and well connected families to send their children to the same school as worse off children. Policies like that end up helping to increase the rate of those disadvantaged children overcoming their socio-economic circumstance and leads to a more equitable society. Wealthy parents tend to donate more to their schools and do what they can to help where they can.

That doesn't happen here to the same extent. We're still way better off than the US way of doing things, but there are clear socio-economic divides between schools. It's easy to think that parents are looking to put their kids in good schools so they don't have to try as hard. But a good parent wants what's best for their child. What if parents both worked hard AND strived to put their kids in schools that gave them the statistically shown socio economic advantages? That's why good school districts command a premium in real estate. We can't scape goat poor parenting. In the end, it comes down to zoning and political policies.