Is the "Education" problem really a "Poverty" problem?

There is an interesting article in Salon about why jobs aren't coming back from China, debunking myths.  One "reason" it tackles is that US Education system is terrible.  They believe (and have some inputs) that this is a problem of poverty and should be treated as such, not a problem of education per say.
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The claim that America’s K-12 system is inferior to that of other industrial nations is another myth whose purpose is to divert the attention of the American public from the real reasons for the offshoring of U.S. industry. Much has been made of the fact that, according to theProgram for International Student Assessment (PISA), the U.S. ranks 12th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in mathematics. But the countries at the top of the list in 2009 -- Korea, Finland, Hong-Kong China, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand and Japan -- tend to be small or homogeneous or both.

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The overall PISA scores of American students are lowered by the poor results for blacks and Latinos, who make up 35 percent of America’s K-12 student population. Asian-American students have an average score of 541, similar to those of Shanghai, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. The non-Hispanic white American student average of 525 is comparable to the averages of Canada (524), New Zealand (521), and Australia (515). In contrast, the average PISA readings score of Latino students is 446 and black students is 441.

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Unlike Asian immigrants, many of whom are college-educated professionals, Latino immigrants tend to be less educated than the American average. And both Latinos and blacks are disproportionately poor. American students in schools where fewer than 10 percent of the students needed subsidized lunches score 551 on average -- above the average of any of the 34 developed countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Americans in schools where at least 75 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches average 446, second to last among students in OECD countries. America’s public school system works quite well, for non-poor native students. It is overwhelmed by a disproportionately black poor population, which suffers the legacy of centuries of discrimination, and a disproportionately unskilled and illiterate foreign-born population. Instead of scapegoating America’s K-12 schools, we need to combat family poverty directly, by means of job creation programs and a living wage, while admitting fewer poorly educated immigrants.