The United States spends more money per pupil than most European countries[1] in K-12 education, $11,000 per student compared to the EU average of $7,700 per student. Where are you getting your beliefs from?
At some point, the public bureaucracy needs to stop draining the blood out of the private economy and learn to do more with less. Or, in the case of US schools, do more with more.
You are asserting generalities, while your arguments are based on yourcurrent government spending money inefficiently. If you would stop arguing in generalities and instead try to address the actual problems you have (which is not the height of the tax!), you may actually achieve something.
As your own numbers show, European governments have succeeded in organising education much more efficiently than your government. This is a counterexample to your general assertion.
We spend quite a lot on education, up to 40% of state budgets in our largest states like California. Spending per student is among the highest in the world. There is no reason to think we would do better by spending even more. To be European, we should probably spend less.
If we want to emulate Europe, and in some ways we do, we should reduce the size of our schools (e.g. France), end a lot of our special programs for challenged children and replace them with a high level of personal attention with the goal of integrating the child (Finland), and develop integration programs and job tracks for immigrants and tightly enforce participation (Germany.)
One of the boldest and most European proposals is to eliminate much of the Department of Education, which does not successfully regulate curricula and implements one expensive program after another without progress. European countries have ministries and departments to oversee education, but since the countries are smaller, the departments are closer to the size of some of our state programs. Eliminating or reducing the DoE to one or two small, specialized, service- and research-oriented departments might possibly reduce expenses while increasing the quality of education in the country at the same time.
In short, I think you will want to support fewer education layers, programs and departments, and smaller schools and budgets, if you want public education in the United States to be more European.
Edit: I would like to add that private schools are very diverse and their students accomplish many remarkable things. In addition to meeting needs that standardized schools cannot, and being run better as small, atomic organizations usually are, private schools and universities drive innovation in education and are the places today from which tomorrow's public best practices will be derived. In most European countries, there are many private schools, so that is another thing you will want to emulate in the European model.
