Funding for education has gone up for decades (even when accounting for inflation) and results have been flat.
> but the advice seems to be plain old protectionism, which has been shown to not work and only lead to domestic companies not remaining competitive.
In a truly free market, sure, but that is not the reality of our current order. If nothing else, America-based labor and corporations must compete at a disadvantage relative to their offshored counterparts because of the regulatory and tax burden our government places on them. Perhaps you think those burdens are warranted, but if so it is only fair that the scales be balanced so that Americans can actually compete. To do otherwise is simply to incentivize offshoring to companies that do not provide the level of labor protections we expect here in the West (e.g. Apple using Foxconn as a manufacturing partner).
There are other benefits to tariffs, including that they are far less intrusive to the freedoms of the ordinary citizen (the income tax leading to the IRS is one of the most invasive aspects of the the modern state).
Lastly, some level of protectionism may be warranted if only to preserve domestic supply chains for critical industries, at least in a regulatory environment that otherwise favors offshoring.