Does it help poor kids to live among and go to school with kids from middle class families? Social theory suggests it should. Actual results differ dramatically.
See a RealClearPolicy article which reports research finding that poor kids do less well when living among the more affluent. This was particularly true of poor boys.
I don't find these research outcomes particularly surprising or counterintuitive. Some of the least pleasant interactions of my adolescence were with boys from the two elite boarding schools in our small SoCal valley - they were some ugly dudes. It was middle class me interacting with upper class them, a similar issue.
