[DuskStar]

The point was that social services cost an absolute fuckton of money. Yes, you could (theoretically) cut the military budget by 20% and move that money elsewhere - but that wouldn't pay for much improvement. The US government spent 771.2 billion dollars on primary and secondary education in fiscal year 2019 [0], and 1,203.3 billion on education as a whole.

890.8 billion was spent on defence.

Cutting the defence budget by 20% and moving that to education, therefore, would be a 15% increase to the education budget.

15% isn't going to do shit to the structural issues that plague our education system. If anything, it'd be counterproductive - because it would shift power further towards the federal government in education and reduce the ability of states to try different things.

0: https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2019USbn_...