Here's my suspicion, coming from a long line of teachers, and I had an article to support this recently but I'm having trouble finding it right now - spending includes not just what the government/taxpayers are spending, but what teachers and students are spending, because in this insane system we have, somehow teachers getting 45k/year (hah, if that) are having to dip into their salaries to get whiteboard markers and notebooks for their kids that can't afford it. Meanwhile, parents are footing the bill for all the other supplies.

Non communal education means costs are spread out means they're higher. The government could bulk purchase, for example, notebooks, at pennies. Instead, students have to get packs of them at a couple bucks. I know this won't be the case for everyone here, but some of you reading this might have the thought, "a couple bucks, really? Just skip starbucks for a couple days!" I recommend you read "Evicted" and learn a bit more about poverty in America if you have these thoughts, or we can email and chat more about it.

In any case, yea, education costs more here for the same reason healthcare does - America is caught between forward-thinking longterm investors that know that a healthy, educated populace is good for the economy, and, well I don't know what shitty excuse the other side is using lately but they're about short term gains and spreading costs among private individuals rather than communising them.

How much of that is being spent on things entirely irrelevant to education, such as administration, "school sports" aka baseball/football stadiums and other amenities?