??

For education expenditure, US spends about $1.1T, of which only $0.11T comes from federal gov't and $1T from state/local gov't in FY2018. It's pretty much ALWAYS been the case that local/state gov't's pay for education expenses (often tied to property taxes).

The national defense budget for FY2018 is $0.87T and comes out of the federal budget only. Comparing the two at federal level makes no sense.

note: https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2018USrn_...

You're indeed right.

But the fact that the US Federal government always find money to feed its military while cutting the other departments [1] (including education) doesn't change the underlying fact that Education has a lesser priority than the Military in Washington DC.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_federal_bud...

This is a common response and fundamentally misunderstands the legal, jurisdictional and functional roles of the Federal, State and Municipal governments. "Federalism" is a foundational tenet of the United States Constitution and system of organization so it's important to understand in depth:

https://education.findlaw.com/curriculum-standards-school-fu...

If your argument is that education should be a constitutional right, and thus funded by the federal government, then that's a different argument than simply "finding the money." Is that the argument you're making?

My argument was that cutting funds for education (even if I understand that it's a state-level prerogative to handle education) while raising funds for the army is a bad signal.

Where is your proof that the gov't is taking money away from education to fund the national defense? The US spending per pupil is second highest according OECD study (see https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm), after a wealth city-state Luxembourg whose GDP per capita is $110K.

Countries like Finland, South Korea which routinely rank top in various international tests and studies spend far less and achieve much better results than the US, so the problem here isn't just about funding.

The Federal government has a constitutional obligation to defend the country. Education is not in the constitution and has always been chiefly a state and local burden.

Unfortunately the U.S Army is not just about "defend the country". The United States spends more on national defense than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, United Kingdom, and Japan combined. I believe a great part of those funds would be better spent elsewhere.

Source on the 68bn number? That sounds comically low.

A quick googling says there's 50.7 million public school kids in the country, you're saying we only spend ~$1,300 per kid? Yeah, that's clearly wrong, you're either making that number up or are quoting the wrong number. And that's not even taking into account any university or adult education spending.

Source on the $68 billion number is probably Wikipedia:

The Department of Education is administered by the United States Secretary of Education. It has under 4,000 employees (2018)[1] and an annual budget of $68 billion (2016).¹

More info at the Education Departments website.²

I don't think that's the right number though? That's just what the Education Department spends each year administering education? The FY 2019 Education Budget Fact Sheet² goes on to say:

"The Budget supports $129.8 billion in new postsecondary grants, loans, and work-study assistance to help an estimated 11.5 million students and their families pay for college

So there's clearly more funds being directed to education than just the $68B.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ed...

2. https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget19/index.htm...

Most public schools are primarily supported by local taxes, supplemented by state and federal.

I stand corrected. It's overall a fairly even split between federal and state. Higher income localities will have a larger ratio come from local property taxes, generally. Poorer neighborhoods rely more on share funding.

Right, that's just the feds, it doesn't include state and local spending (which I believe represent the majority of school funds).

The US spent ~$575bn in 2014-2015 in expenditures for public elementary and secondary education [0]

Additionally, the US spends more than almost all OECD countries [1]

Please don't spread misinformation.

[0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_236.10.a...

[1] https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm

The military is, for many, vocational training, even though you may disagree with its outcomes (I certainly do).

I do not know the numbers but dare to say with great certainty that regular vocational training is orders of magnitude more efficient and thus lower in cost than the military.

The vocational training argument is used quite a bit by military recruiters, but the reality is little of that training is valued on the job market, with a few exceptions. There are companies that do have veteran hiring preferences, but these are often social and economic justice efforts and do not take into account any actual skills.