Re: Explains lack of school printing!
Whilst I understand where you are coming from there are more issues than underfunding.
Schools have had to waste hug amounts of resources bouncing between the initiative and that initiative. Then when money is available it is often squandered because of "Equal Opportunities" or the fear of something becoming elitist. This has resulted in huge sums of money just being blown trying to do whole-class teaching of something.
A classic example of this is the Music Wider Opportunities scheme. There is more money than ever going into music yet over the entire country, it is dying.
Music is classed as elitist and exclusive so the money is all being thrown at whole class teaching of ukulele of fife. There is zero benefit to anyone it is so rubbish. Schools orchestras are dead because few can afford to learn and unsurprisingly, those that do are down to parents funding everything. County groups are also dying because you cannot get people to turn up, again if they are good they don't because it is crap.
Where I live in Leicestershire we had a music service that was the envy of many. Yes it cost money but hundreds of kids go so much out of it. Over the last 15 years it has been utterly decimated and will never come back. Covid had been the final nail in the coffin and I really wonder how this is going to recover.
Everything to do with "State" schools is now a shambolic descent into mediocrity because nothing can be competitive, elitist or be striving for excellence. There is more to education than providing university fodder.
Then we have the entire Academy system where there is this notion that because something is a "Trust" there is some degree of respectability. You only have to look at the management food change to see where huge amounts of the funding is going.
This gives an interesting insight:
https://www.nga.org.uk/getmedia/96d3df9c-1e4f-4e62-976d-f68b128843a2/NGA-setting-exec-pay-considerations-for-trust-boards-Sept-2020.pdf
Just why the hell do you need a head, an executive head and all the support that it entails?