Anyone can learn to add and subtract if you don't teach it like absolute shit.
To me, it seems US is emotionally invested and being stubborn with the idea that natural selection and power concentration is key to competency, and universal measures are risk factors for the all-important elimination processes, despite there being ample proofs that that is not even a sane line of thinking and distribution of most things just keeps making huge returns.
Otherwise, let's assume the bottom 50% actually can't be educated, is it waste of whose time or resources to try?