Why is the federal government in the education business in the first place?
There is no Constitutional authority for this.
And it’s not like they are any good at it, either.
That’s a great question, but kind of off-topic. Although if there shouldn’t be public schools, you certainly shouldn’t be selling candy in them.
:-)
On the other hand, it was a founding father who fought for a public school system. So the idea wasn’t some recently-dreamed up liberal scheme.