A cartoon that isn't funny

[Occulus]

81. Parents wouldn't have to buy supplies for the rest of the class for the year, for one thing

And yes, elementary school children are required to bring exactly that these days, and for that purpose. Their parents pay for it. Not the schools.

Every child in America could go to school under a program like the Kalamazoo Promise, for another.

We could build or rebuild state-of-the-art technology into every classroom in every school in every state, for another. We could- and should- demolish and rebuild a whole lot of the schools themselves while we're at it.

I don't think you really comprehend what's possible with such an unimaginable sum of money. This is common; many Americans think NASA is "expensive" in relation to the national budget (wrong wrong wrong, by the way- NASA's budget is a straw in a tornado by comparison). These sums are beyond belief, literally more money than any one person can possibly comprehend the potential of. So on that one point, you're forgiven- it's literally beyond your understanding.

The answer is, we spend less money on education now than we should, by a very great chasm of difference between what our schools have and what they actually need. No, money does not translate into competent teaching, nor does it directly lead to actual learning. But you can't do either one effectively when you're asking parents already stretched too goddamned thin to scrape a little more butter from the empty plastic tub.