ability, opportunity, and utterly arbitrary advantage

I'd like to throw this out for comments...

So far, I've found the book to be really interesting (I'm relieved). Sometimes I struggle to make the leap from "Gee, this is an interesting anecdote" to "Hey, this has relevance to us in the field of education," and at this point (I'm about a third of the way through the book), the passage that has made the most striking impact on me, in that regard, is on p.37:
"...[successful] outliers in a particular field reached their lofty status through a combination of ability, opportunity, and utterly arbitrary advantage."

In other words, the really super-successful people Gladwell writes about did have innate abilities, but opportunity and arbitrary advantage were hugely important factors too.

In a school system, students come to us with innate abilities, but it's our task to provide them (all of them) ample opportunities to develop those abilities. I suppose I'm stating the obvious. Really it was the 'arbitrary' factor that I hadn't thought about before. It's pretty ingrained in us to believe 'bootstrap' storylines for success (person A with some talent and a lot of gumption meets with great success, regardless of background); it's the American Dream storyline, but Gladwell says that more often than not, there are arbitrary factors at work, beyond ability and gumption.

Topic for discussion @ La Palapa... are there 'arbitrary advantages' inherent in school systems? If there are arbitrary advantages, doesn't that mean there are arbitrary DISadvantages? If there are, are they within or beyond our control?

Thoughts, anyone? How about a Thursday La Palapa gathering sometime in late October or early November (if no one is ready sooner)?