The unfortunate truth that it doesn't matter left or right, the parents will be relentless. They will choose the most competitive schools no matter what. They will pay for private tuition and get the children to the private schools if they think the default choices are not enough.
Lower the bar would only harm the poor kids who would have a chance to thrive in merit based programs
It is not clear at all that this is a case of lowering the bar; IMO that verges on an inability to engage critically with the issue under discussion.
It looks to me to be exploring a different way of presenting the subject matter that tries to answer the "how would I ever use this information" questions so commonly heard about hard sciences.
Lower the bar would only harm the poor kids who would have a chance to thrive in merit based programs