You have to look at the details: for example, is the enrollment static or do you see things like more students requiring support services which we’ve chosen to put on schools rather than funding through a national health service like most of our peer countries? That one’s especially important when making historical comparisons because the United States no longer excludes special needs kids or tracks lower-performing poor kids into work. Comparisons with other countries are similar - people will talk about countries like Singapore being far ahead but once you compare similar SES cohort performance, the effect becomes much smaller.
Is it the case that the amount of money spent on infrastructure is increasing unnecessarily or because previous generations voted against maintenance until things failed completely?
Is spending going up due to teacher salaries or because the solution to perceived problems is adding more layers of much higher-compensated management who will reliably divert staff time away from education?
Again, I’m not saying that everything is perfect with no room for improvement but rather that there’s both deliberate misrepresentation (e.g. the charter school industry literally banks on this belief) and significant confusion caused by trying to find a cheap fix for complex social problems.
Is it the case that the amount of money spent on infrastructure is increasing unnecessarily or because previous generations voted against maintenance until things failed completely?
Is spending going up due to teacher salaries or because the solution to perceived problems is adding more layers of much higher-compensated management who will reliably divert staff time away from education?
Again, I’m not saying that everything is perfect with no room for improvement but rather that there’s both deliberate misrepresentation (e.g. the charter school industry literally banks on this belief) and significant confusion caused by trying to find a cheap fix for complex social problems.