Why don't I live there, even though the location would be more convenient and has far more nearby parks and businesses, the housing is dirt-cheap, they have better access to public transit than we do, the area's more walkable/bike-able, et c? The schools are bad.
Why are the schools bad? Because people like me (that is, people whose kids have a low-stress life outside of school) won't move there. Digging out of that hole is nearly impossible. It amounts to "gentrify things all to hell" (which just shifts the problem around rather than actually solving it) or "fix huge social and economic problems the US has".
In either case, you can't do much about it by focusing on the schools themselves.
So I think by extending the current system to areas in poverty that do not have an established culture of obedience means we have to either change the system or start beating kids again imo. I vote for the former, obviously.
Even worse, imagine being a child growing up in that environment. Actual fistfights were happening every few hours in school where I grew up.