> The US spends more per student than any other country, by a lot. Money is very clearly not the problem.
I've heard this, but will fully admit I don't know how real this is. For one, the US generally has the highest COL in the world, so it's bound to spend more per student than any other country. Moreover, the general concern I've seen is that badly funded school districts in the US are much worse off than well funded school districts. Moreover gender disparities are not as bad in well funded school districts.
I've seen that concern as well, but it's pretty clearly a zombie concern from the days when schools would be funded almost entirely by local property taxes. Most states now equalize funding between local districts.
I don’t know the picture in every state, but in CA schools still receive 31% of their funding from local taxes. That’s still quite a bit. Then there’s other sources of funding like the school PTA which does things like fund school supplies.
Again, the state equalizes. After the 2013 funding reforms, the state gives districts gives districts with high-need students more money to make up for local funding shortfalls. The statistics I've seen (e.g. https://www.ppic.org/publication/financing-californias-publi...) indicate that this more than closes the gap.
I've heard this, but will fully admit I don't know how real this is. For one, the US generally has the highest COL in the world, so it's bound to spend more per student than any other country. Moreover, the general concern I've seen is that badly funded school districts in the US are much worse off than well funded school districts. Moreover gender disparities are not as bad in well funded school districts.