...even if you're right that somehow our spending per student on education has gone up nationally, then please explain to me why teachers such as my wife have to spend their own money on basic classroom supplies such as pencils and paper?

That this is true is borne out extensively by my own experience with my kids' teachers. The majority of teachers in the trenches are busting their butts to make ends meet, both in time and resources, and having them cough up their own money to give the students what they need is not an uncommon situation. When I complain about the education bureaucracy, these are NOT the people I'm talking about.

So where IS the money going? I'd really like to know. I have suspicions, but no hard numbers. It isn't like there are education CEOs walking off with private jets, and infrastructure can't be all of it.

I do know that we did a better job in a lot of ways of teaching children math, science, and other things with far fewer physical resources. This is what I mean when I say we put a man on the Moon without a Federal Department of Education. Much of our current civilization was built by people who started out in one-room schoolhouses.

I suspect that cultural and political issues have a lot more to do with our educational problems than lack of money, but sure as the sun comes up in the morning, the solution proposed will always be "more money."