We have an enormous K-12 administration level partly because we have so many local school districts, each of which typically needs to separately buy textbooks, serve food, apply for state and federal funding and handle compliance, run HR and physical plant operations and janitorial and IT, manage transportation, respond to inquiries from the public, etc.

It’s very hard politically to merge school districts because even beyond labor considerations, people have a sense that their district is superior to the one next door and think a merger will create immediate chaos and long term harm to their kids’ educations and their property values.

Spending isn't the problem, when you ignore how the spending is composed.

We flattened out decades ago, and that's because we went from subsidizing schools to funding loans. The money makeup per studnet won't look different... until the student graduates and can't pay it off.

So our solution was obvious: make it so they can't bankrupt and stay in debt forever. Great way to build an educated citizenship.