Set aside the question of whether the model(s) at hand predict a certain percentage of the variance in the constrained outcome of the model(s). You don't even need to know that.
The question is, we have an enormous real-world intervention that's being performed right now on children: the change in funding. Reclassifying these schools has an immediate, scaled effect.
What evidence does a tech team have to choose this change? What accountability? What expertise? What right to this data?