The US is usually in the top 3 spending per student (beaten only by small countries that represent statistical outliers like Norway or Luxemburg), so really, it spends the most. Yet, as many are quick to point out, all that money results in educational outcomes well below many European countries and also many Asian countries that spend far, far less.
Luckily, this is researched extensively, and schools must publish budgets. Typically, spending on 'instruction' is >60% of the expenditures, almost all of that is salaries and benefits. Capital outlay is usually around 8-10%, support services and administration around 10%, operations and maintenance around 10%, and around 5% for transportation/bussing.
Contrary to the typical claims that 'administration' or capital costs suck up all the money, the majority of the money does go to teachers' salary.
It would also be interesting to compare educational outcomes in particular US states to particular European countries. I suppose that the quality of education may be as unevenly distributed across the US as it is across Europe.
Teachers salaries are 100% a local issue. If you want to raise their salary then vote to increase taxes in your county. Teachers are state employees. The states governments are more than capable enough to solve these issues since they are local issues.
That said, my understanding is that the military budget mostly goes to salaries, so any drastic cuts would leave us with massive unemployment. You'd have to take things really slow to make that big a change in the labor force without pretty ugly side effects.
No, it's not. Russia, Israel, and Saudi Arabia all spend more as a percentage of GDP on their militaries than America.
>USA's military spending in 2021 hit $801bn a year, says the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. In comparison Russia's military spending in 2021 hit only $66bn.
US population: 329.5 million, Russian population: 144.1 million,
Per capita spending US: $24,600. Russia: $458
While I’m at it: US GDP: 20.94 trillion, 1.483 trillion
US military spending as percent of GDP: 3.8%, Russia: 4.5%
Now you can see how there is a way.
- smaller, poorer countries
- countries involved in active military conflicts or with active military conflicts near them
- petrostates
In many countries in Europe there are only public schools.
https://high-schools.com/directory/ca/cities/beverly-hills/b...
Although, after googling highest-income school district in the US, not all school districts do:
https://high-schools.com/directory/ny/school-districts/scars...
* pay teachers a fair wage
* hire enough teachers, assistants, and admins so that teachers don't have to work at least another half a workday 'off the books'
* fund schools well enough that teachers don't have to pay out of pocket for basic supplies like chalk and paper
* feed our children a proper meal at lunch by default, instead of making them pay for a crappy meal (unless their busy parents jump through hoops to prove they're poor enough)
One of the strangest things for me as a private school student coming from the public school system was being able to go into the lunch line, get what food I wanted, as much as I wanted, and not have to pay for it. No worries about losing the lunch money I'd been given, getting beat up for my lunch money, etc.