I address some of your specific concerns below, but here's a tip: be loud and be involved. At a lot of districts, especially in Texas, sports facilities receive

I address some of your specific concerns below, but here's a tip: be loud and be involved. At a lot of districts, especially in Texas, sports facilities receive a ton of resources because the sports-obsessed parents are loud and make it clear that they vote. But this requires civic-mindedness. You have to care a decade before your kid is in school, and continue caring a decade after, if anything's going to change. That's why sports get so many resources at some districts -- the sports -obsessed parents stay involved long before and long after their kids are out of school. I'm not sure what to say except "welcome to democracy". (e: you might expect things would be better if education were privatized, but in reality the private schools seem even more obsessed with sports, and have their own high school version of the university amenities wars. So I'm skeptical that market mechanisms wouldn't end up behaving similarly to democratic mechanisms.) > They spent over 2 million dollars on my sons high school this summer to replace the grass on the football field with artificial turf. Artificial turf can be cheaper in the long run for primary use athletic fields, which get a lot of abuse and therefore require a lot of ongoing maintenance. You're trading a ~30+ year amortized cost for a single fixed cost, so the number can get pretty high while still working out in the black. $2 million is high for a single field, though. Did it include e.g. upgrades to the stadium seating? And I don't see why a middle school would need turf. I tend to think the sports component of American high schools is stupid. But if it's going to exist, turf can be a cost-efficient choice. WRT the other stuff, again, see "get involved" and "be loud". > The ignorant fools in my district just passed a Bond Election for like 300 million dollars for God only knows what This is generally public information. 300 million sounds like district-wide significant building upgrades. These things usually mix "invisible but important" stuff (routers, HVAC upgrades, etc.) with "visible, high impact" stuff. I'd be surprised if those science and computer labs aren't included? > It now almost costs the same amount to send one kid to High School as it does to send the other kid to UoT (Dallas). Frankly, if you step back for a second, you'd expect K12 education to be more expensive than college. In one case you're lecturing to huge rooms of adults, in the other you're teaching small classes. But that's a whole different conversation...