It's troubling that in the USA while inflation adjusted education spending per student has grown more than 150% since 1970...

Cell phone usage is a major distraction in the classroom and also leads to shorter attention spans and decreased mental health, particularly with anxiety and depression. A lot of that may also lead to obesity

The thing is that student test scores and academic achievements were rising up until about 2013, when sites like Twitter and Instagram were peaking and smart phones had reached market dominance.

Is it causation or correlation? My guess would be it's closer to the former.

Social media algorithms are poison

Off the top of my head:

- Doing anything with computers increases costs
- Schools have way more security now
- Accessibility improvements
- High school sports becoming bigger and bigger all the time

None of these have anything to do with quality of education and I bet some things which could affect quality of education (say, working conditions for teachers) aren't part of that cost inflation.

I could not say as I do not live in America but suggest perhaps asking:

What was the USA's average inflation-adjusted rise in public-services costs generally in that 54 years?

Are you seeing that rise in teachers' salaries, school buildings overheads, educational-materials prices and other support costs; but no change since 1970 in subjects, examinations, teaching methods and materials, and expected academic levels?

For static curriculae, syllabi and tutorial methods might explain the two academic measurements staying static; but not the pupils' personal problems. If those are social and pastoral matters heavily linked to external factors - are the teachers helped to try to help such pupils?

1. Parental issues .. lower focus and involvement in their childs education .. ensuring the kid does the work and is held accoutable
2. Too much focus on teaching social issues in the classroom and not enough on reading, math and science

Well we might be able to find out if the representatives of congress were allowed to enter the department of education instead of being blocked at the entrance by private security

Actually reading and math scores declined