I think the author fired this to capture the attention of the reader early on, so that later he could expose the problem.

At first, it seemed as if the author almost conveys the thought that educated people should feel guilty from breeding with other educated people.

But thinking about it, all he seems to want is to break the implication: Bright kid ==> came from educated family.

To tear down causality, so that even kids who were born in ghettos could do something with their lives.

However, pondering on my own family:

My mother didn't continue college. My father studied in a technical high-school, but didn't go to college due to the fact our country was invaded by France and he had to provide for his mother and brothers and sisters, working with his father. He didn't go to college so that they get to.

Even though they didn't go to college, and although they were under great financial stress, there was one thing you couldn't mess with at home: Reading. They were ferocious readers. I was raised in a home with the classics (Balzac, Dumas, Hugo), books about plants, History, philosophy, geography, manuals for everything (from sewing machines, to guns and radio transmission). They raised 9 kids and we all went through a ton of stuff. We call the bathroom "The National Library" for a reason.

I wasn't allowed to go out until I've written many pages (to improve hand-writing, way before I was of age to be schooled. When I was 10, first year we started French at school (by that time, I had been exposed to the language for 10 years already), my teacher accused me of not being the one who wrote the text she asked us to and I had to write in front of her to believe. It was a "grown-up" writing). I've been accused so many times of cheating because I did something "I wasn't supposed to be able to do or knew something I wasn't supposed to know".

They schooled my brothers and sisters, who then schooled me.

My first three languages, I learned at home, my fourth when I started playing with kids outside. And then English, etc. My childhood was reading, reading, and reading. I had to summarize things like stories, and explain them. I've been asked questions on them. Engineering magazines, newspapers, you name it.

I assumed all the kids had to do this.

We became Software/Civil/Electronics Engineers, Architects, Maths and Chem/Physics grads and Designers.

So the question is: Knowing that they didn't go to college, and the fact my father was a political prisoner for years, and my mother had her parents tortured and murdered by French military when she was 9 or so...

How did they manage not to fall into the trap of perpetuating the cycle, and blaming their life conditions. After all, failing our education would've been extremely easy to justify with what they went through.

The answer is, in one word: Sacrifice. They sacrificed a lot of things and were not selfish, and never complained or neglected our education by finding an excuse in self-pity on why it was okay to fail us. Then my brothers and sisters were not selfish by transmitting and putting a lot of effort in my education, more than they received. And we're putting that effort with my nieces and nephews.

Would we stop putting that much effort in my nieces and nephews if public education was of quality? Definitely not. It's not the same motivation a brother or sister, an uncle, or a parent, has toward a child than a teacher has.