Spending numbers are not super informative, I'll ramble off a few things I find are non-obvious to people outside of education that relate to inequality. 1. Pa

Spending numbers are not super informative, I'll ramble off a few things I find are non-obvious to people outside of education that relate to inequality. 1. Parents farther down the social totem pole are more unhappy and stressed as a cohort. The negative effects of a bad home life on kids is enormous and education is often impossible without dealing with some of these issues. You either spend your resources addressing those home issues are try to ignore them and throw good money after bad. (this also complicates cross-country comparisons because many of our social programs for kids are funded through the education budget where other countries put them in a health or social well-being budget). 2. When it was easier to achieve a higher quality of life on a single above average income you get higher quality teachers. A pattern you see amongst the best teachers who are now in their 50s or 60s is that their significant other had a good job and the teacher sacrificed a higher paying career for better hours for raising kids and the ability to easily move to almost any location with their spouse without their own career disruptions (since everyone needs teachers). This is no longer a good option unless your partner is earning a lot of money. 3. Funding numbers often fail to capture various types of donations in cash, materials, and/or labor. I grew up in a fairly rich neighborhood and my public school received thousands of hours of unpaid labor per year from parents, construction projects built cheap at high quality by parents who owned massive contracting businesses, an art program taught by rich moms who took minimum wage to just fill their day (to be clear, they were good teachers), and a whole host of other benefits. These benefits can be worth thousands of dollars per child per year.