This article fails to specify exactly to what end "it has never mattered." Assuming that the reasoning of the article is correct (the other comments have sufficiently questioned this issue), it still "matters" that the U.S. public education is subject glaring inequalities, that low-income schools often fail to graduate the majority of their students, that income level is so positively correlated to academic achievement, that students can be trapped in classrooms with 40+ students with no hope of individual attention. Addressing and reforming these problems is independent of the privilege and success of elite students.