[HideousKojima]

Definitely not budget cuts. School budgets have surprisingly little to do with educational outcomes. See Abbott districts in New Jersey for one of the starkest examples of this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district

Despite having better per-pupil funding than the wealthiest districts in the state (thanks to a court order mandating increased funding) student performance has stayed the same and even worsened in these districts.

The single biggest determiners of school performance seems to be the level of parental involvement and the average IQ of the students. Well those, plus selection effects to bump up numbers: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/why-selection-bias-is-t...