I'm not googling for them just now, but I know I've seen graphs that show that as we've spent more and more money on education, we've seen no affect on educational metrics (test scores, basic competencies, etc.)

I don't think it's a money problem. It's a problem with an intractable public education system in this country that's only really concerned with its own power and growth. We could solve that problem with the stroke of a pen by eliminating the monopoly that the current public education system has upon our educational tax dollars.