Most public school teachers belong to the NEA or AFT. There are some two million teachers in America, so they constitute a large voting block. School board elections traditionally have very low turnouts in many cities. I tend to think that is by design, at least here, because the elections are held at off times of the year like April when little else is on the ballot. That being the case, educational insiders seldom have trouble getting the people they want elected. Those people are more interested in job security than in doing a good job, IMO.

The question isn't necessarily one of funding. The Washington DC public school system has been considered one of the worst in America for a long time despite spending an average of over $12,000 per student per year. Several other large city school systems pay over $8,000 per student per year and achieve similarly dismal results.

The is a lot of money in education. Consider a more typical expenditure of $5,000 per student per year. Suppose you had a typical class with 25 students. That works out to $125,000 for that one class. We all know the teacher isn't getting all of that money. Average teacher pay plus benefits might total somewhere around $50,000 to $60,000, so that leaves somewhere around $65,000 to $75,000. Some of that money goes to building maintenance (often too little), some goes to pay the salaries of the other staff (administration, library, custodial, etc.), and some goes to central administration. The point is that over half of the money spent for that class each year goes to others besides the teacher.

The costs for central administration vary widely from district to district. Where I live, about 8% of the per pupil costs goes to central administration. Using the numbers I provided above, that works out to roughly $400 per student per year. That money goes to cover the school district administrator, his/her staff, facilities, etc. This is one of the bones of contention - I believe the school systems have a poor "tooth to tail ratio" to use a military phrase. We've had cases were administrators were spending $70,000 to apply for a $50,000 federal grant, and that's by no means an isolated example. Too many people at the central administration are trying to justify their jobs.

I still believe that government is most responsive the closer it exists to the voters. School boards and city governments are more responsive than county governments. County governments are more responsive than state governments, and the federal government isn't very responsive at all.

Turning education over to the federal government isn't likely to make anything better. Look at recent stories about screw-ups at the federal level in Medicare, the FBI, the INS, and yes, even the military. I honestly believe the federal government has yet to prove itself very competent to do most things, so I don't see turning education over to them.