Sue:

It isn't as easy as that. In the US certain things get tossed into 'education' that just don't show up in other nations. The cost of busing, including keeping, administering and maintaining a large fleet of buses and drivers, doesn't show up on many other nations education's costs. Many European nations rely on their municipal mass transit systems to move the children to and from school.

School buildings in some other nations are not administered under education but rather they are listed and funded under local government as municipal buildings.

The US system has mandated that all children, regardless of potential costs, be given an education. Whereas some other nation simply neglect these children, and some European nations, maintain special schools and tutorial systems. In both cases the related costs are much less or, often, don't show up as general education funding.

In the US middle and upper middle class families pulled their children from public schools as a response to integration in the 60s. Because of this the average income of families sending their children to public schools has drop. In LA county approximately a third of all children in public schools come from homes below the poverty line. They tend to be poorer, many not speaking english, often intellectually neglected in early life, often emotionally neglected or abused.

While teachers in the US, and the teachers union, are often blamed for rising education costs the reality is that US teachers tend to make much less, and be a lower SE status, than in other developed western nations and teacher to student ratios tend to be much smaller in the US than in other developed nations.

We demand much from public education in the US than other nations. Much of this demand has little to do with any actual classroom teaching. At the same time the public system has been drained of many of the children who are easiest to teach. Children who start school with good academic skills, coming from families that are inclined to be engaged and support their children's education, children who are emotionally well adjusted and least likely to be disruptive have left many districts.