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.