Beg to differ. You think it was spent efficiently because you have no basis for comparison. Public education hates longitudinal studies because they show that compared with students of fifty years ago, high school graduates, even in the “classy” school districts do not perform intellectual tasks as well. The root of the problem is the need to graduate eighty percent of the 17-year olds and at least twenty-five percent of the WHITE ANGLO population is not up to the rigor of a 1955 English class, as no rigorous as that often was. The high school was designed back in the 1890s for the top ten percent of the 14-19 population, for college prep. The drive for secondary education for all has gradually caused a breakdown in the model. Didn’t help that the intellectually most excellent part of the teacher cadre—bright young women —has since the 1960s been drawn off into other fields. Law, medicine, higher education etc. They have been replaced by womenwho in earlier times would have been secretaries and clerks. The exceptions prove the rule. Teachers by and large are more polished socially than they were, more broadly knowledgeable, but less thorough and, of course, never drilled in the basics of education.
There are some exceptionally bright people going into teaching. I’ve actually met some of them. The problem is, they go where the pay is highest. NYC regularly poaches teachers from Texas and other low-paying states. A teacher can jump their salary from $30,000 to $50,000 by moving from Houston or Ft. Worth to NYC. Of course, then the suburban schools poach from NYC — so the teacher can bump their salary from $30,000 with the move to NYC up to $80,000 by moving to Westchester County. That’s a $50,000 raise in 8 or 9 years.