"The idea of taxes paying for education was sold on the idea that an educated population would be better able to work."

Support that statement. I challenge you to actually support it with fact. You're going to want to be VERY careful here because my wife is a 30-year educator, Constitutional scholar, and teacher of U.S. government and history.

The FACT is that public education is intended to prepare us to be better, more basically competent (at spelling, grammar, reason, critical thinking, etc), more well-rounded people -- people who can easily discern grifters like Elon and Trump and their motives, based on history, pragmatic first principles, etc.