edit - Just looked at budgets. You are picking the peak. Which makes me somewhat doubtful of the rest of your analysis. In 2009 it was $32 billion. In 2010 it was $56 billion. It peaked at $71 billion in 2011 and has been almost flat since then.

edit2 - heh, actually the peak was in 2009. Do not trust wikipedia. http://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chtt=Department+of+Educati... http://febp.newamerica.net/background-analysis/education-fed...

Still, the general point holds, it has not been remotely steady at $70 billion.

Appropriations since 1980 add up to about $1.334 trillion. This is not inflation adjusted, however, so the equivalent amount in 2014 dollars would be much higher.

I wish they had given NASA that money instead and maybe we'd have a colony on the moon by now.

Also, you have given no references whatsoever for your claimed steady decline in literacy and maths since 1979.