"Try to get a hold of this. there were these communities of hard working, not terribly well educated people No money had been spent on educating them"

Exactly the same amount of money was being spent educating them as was spent being educating everyone else. What you have in life are choices, some hard, some easy, some through necessity.

Odd thing about the Home Countries of my childhood, amongst the poor in Scotland and in Wales there was this terrific respect for education and the benefits a good education could bestow. Our family had friends who were from minimg communities in the North East, in Methil (Fife) and guys I played rugby against down in South Wales. The common thing you heard in Methil and in Wales from miners was, "No son of mine will go down the pit", most ended up going all the way through higher education and on to university, those that didn't went through apprenticeships with day release courses and night school. In the North East not once did I ever hear anybody say that - it was the easy option to go down the pit. Met quite a few who went to the Royal Navy and into the Royal Marines.