There's a critical subset of people that won't commit to any side of anything.
But as soon as you tell them that your side of the argument is fixing or reducing racism, they say, "how high should we jump?!"
The racism angle is distraction, IMO.
The actual question,
"Is school about learning, or work ethic, or competing?"
If we're just trying to teach kids facts and methods, we shouldn't care how much or how little work they do, so long as they demonstrate learning on the test.
If it's about work ethic, or "the real world", then every little thing the student does can be judged. That gives us some excuse to be cruel to the kids, but does tomorrow's world necessarily have to be as cruel as today's?
If it's just about competing, then yes, some of the students win, but some lose. Is that acceptable, or is competition not really the best idea for most students?

---