The Great Debate

We're looking at school to enroll Jakey in for 4th grade (the year after next) that are NOT in our school district. We have been using a website called Great Schools to gather information about the schools we are interested in.

A friend and I were discussing our criteria for the school we will choose for Jakey (our school is a failing school - the public one he formerly attended, not the charter school we use now for homeschooling and thanks to No Child Left Behind we can transfer pretty much wherever we want). Anyhow our criteria are:

Test scores
Ethnicity - I want a culturally diverse school, I don't want Jakey to be a majority or minority.
Percentage of students getting Free/Reduced lunch - honestly - the lower that # the higher the teest scores.
Percentage of students learning English - Jakey really got left behind alot in public school because his teacher was so busy trying to reach the non-English speaking students.

She disagrees, she thinks that Free/Reduced Lunch and Language have nothing to do with test scores, and I believe firmly that they do. I do not want Jakey attending a school with more than half the students receiving it, and I don't want more than 10% to be learning English while my child gets left behind because he knows English - he just doesn't know what the teacher is trying to teach.

I want Jakey to start back in 4th grade, it'll give him time to make some friends so he can go to a Jr high with those same kids and have friends during the hard transition to middle school. Plus if Jakey's in, then Justin will be "grandfathered in" under his enrollment and can start Kindergarten there when Jakey is in 5th grade.

So what do you think? Do you think those kinds of socio-economic factors play a part in a child's academic success? I obviously believe SOME overcome, and not ALWAYS is the "stereotype" correct, but I think it really does.