When all else fails, dive for the anecdotal evidence.
The usual meme is that our public education system would be perfect if we just dumped more money on it. I heard the ads on the radio here in California from the unions and others during the great budget fight. Just increase the funding, and it will finally work. Promise.
That's why the District of Columbia, which spends over twice as much per pupil as Arizona, is an educational paradise.
We put men on the Moon with an educational system that spent a third per student in constant dollars than we spend now, and no Department of Education in Washington at all. You need to pull back and think to be able to draw the larger conclusions.