From the right you have those who want to cut school funding because of poor results and wasteful bureaucracy. On the left you have those who want to throw more funding at the problem and while defending unions and administration against reforms that would help the students. Both sides benefit from the contention and easy political points that can score with their supporters.
I disagree. The right doesn't want to "cut school funding". They want to cut DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION funding, which does nothing (in my opinion) but add cost to the schools through mandates and bureaucratic red tape/requirements.
In 1998-1999 education spending was roughly $5-6k per student. Baltimore was the most expensive school district with a cost per student of roughly $12k. Now, we are approaching $13k as the average, with the highs in the lower $20ks.
A large portion of this spending increase is in Administration, not in teachers, pensions, books, etc. Yes, some is due to technology over materials - laptops and projectors instead of mimoegrpahs and overheads, but the larger is in the increase in compliance offices, to make sure schools fill out and maintain the mandated activities from the D of Ed.
Agree with everything you said about the DoE and bloated administration being large drivers of the problem. But I stick to the original assertion that the right does want to cut school and education funding.
Republicans in North Carolina cut funding https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/05/14/republicans-in-n-c-senate-cut-education-funding-but-only-in-democratic-districts-really/
Look at what happened in Kansas. Governor Brownback completely gutted the education system https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article9351788.html
And then there are Republicans seeking to cut school lunches.
Now this does not mean everyone on the right supports defunding schools and education, but my point is that this is far from a fringe position amongst Republicans. Personally I wouldn't want to be associated with such poor policy, so I openly criticize it. There are undoubtedly very useful reforms and vouchers that could be made to create competetion between schools and drive improvement, but I wouldn't trust Republicans to do that given their record of gutting education at any chance they have.
Adult literacy rates are a statistic that we all benefit from. It not only improves the quality of life for the individual but as well as everyone that person interacts with.
As a country that prides itself as being the best in the world at everything. It baffles me that education is so neglected.