It’s decades of defunding schools. I used to work in education and I have never in my career experienced “more” money coming in. It’s always, cuts, cuts, cuts.

That and the culture of anti-intellectualism in the US. I’m completely unsurprised we are falling behind.

NYC, DC, and LA all have over $20k of funding per student, with NYC projecting to hit $42k/student this year and are scoring at 12-56% ELA and Math.

It's definitely not just funding.

How can it be "defunding" while the US spends far more per student than just about any other country in the world?

Education spending by all metrics has only gone up - beating inflation nearly every single year since I've been alive.

It might not make it down to teacher salaries or more educators, but the money is absolutely being spent at massive levels.

The best schools where I grew up and around me today have the lowest per-pupil cost. There is basically no correlation between budget spent on education until you get to the extremes on both ends.

Except for a brief blip around the housing crash inflation adjusted per pupil spending has steadily increased for decades.

Do you have evidence of this? I have never seen a shred of it even though the claim is repeated endlessly. I think it's a conspiracy theory.