More money HAS worked quite well in many, many communities. It has not worked well everywhere.
The United States does not have a national school system with national standards. It has thousands of school systems. In most of them, unions have done more good than harm. Rightwingers think that pointing out dumb shit that goes on in DC and NYC or used to means that the same stuff goes on everywhere. Pat Torniullo, who used to be the leader of the AFT here in Miami, was corrupt and generally useless at leading teachers. I had one chance to vote for or against him when I was a permanent sub for three months, and I voted against him, because he was responsible in part for the absurd system that the Miami Schools had for requiring records. I was required to keep records of student performance in a certain complicated order. When I asked to see the records I had submitted to check on something, I was told they had been destroyed, which they did unannounced with all records two weeks before the end of classes. I resented having to spend hours sorting stuff when it could not possibly serve any purpose to anyone. I heard this had been instituted according to some deal that Tornillo had negotiated, and no one could tell me why. Tornillo was caught in some scandal three years after that and they tell me that schools have improved. At least the rankings of schools according to the state guidelines have improved.
All school problems must be dealt with on a district to district basis, perhaps they do spend too much money in a few places. I have never seen any examples of that in the four districts where I taught. To make some blanket statement like "spending more has not improved schools, so we should not pay more money" is simplistic and in no way could possibly apply to every school district. Reactionaries hate teachers because teachers vote Democratic mostly and teachers unions are among the best at organizing get out the vote drives. Reactionaries hate get out the vote drives, because it means they lose elections, which is to the advantage of most of the citizens of this country. Democrats are occasionally corrupt. Republicans are nearly all suckups who will follow the desires of the fatcats who have purchased them.
