Is he fondling the grunt’s junk?

Nah. Poor public schools spend waaaay to much money on shit like this. Source: Have worked as a teacher in a poor public school.

Money is a means of determining the distribution of resources. It doesn’t matter if stuff costs less or if people make more money, what matters is that nessecities, at a minimum, are more equitably distributed. You can make that end goal take different forms. Money is a little awkward for that end because you use money to purchase both food and nice cars.