The above poster is talking about "school choice" which is making its rounds through legislatures in red states. The legislation effectively defunds public schools if people decide to homeschool or can afford to send their children to private school.
Yes, but the argument goes that parents who are likely to move their kids elsewhere have kids where the cost to educate them is just a fraction of what is being spent on the average kid. Imagine a school system that spends $15k per student per year. But that is just the average. Some of the kids are only consuming $5k of resources while others require $60k per year. If the kids who are only costing $5k go to another school and take the $15k with them, they will presumably get a better education where more of the $15k will be allocated to them. Meanwhile at the school that was used to spending $60k on some students, they will presumably need to have less disparity in the amount they spend on each student.
Well maybe we shouldnt be paying schools the same for disabled and average students to begin with.
Besides, it is pretty said that the best counter argument against charter schools is that parents will take their fair share of funding and use it to buy a much better education for their children.
I believe that most school systems do get more money for disabled kids. But kids that do their homework, pay attention in class, etc. cost a lot less to educate than a kid who isn't really interested in learning--even without any disabilities.
To your point about charter schools, there is a strong argument to be made that when parents have a choice where there kids go, public schools will have to make sure they are providing more academic opportunities if they don't want to risk losing the academically minded families (and their money). That seems like it would be a good thing for everyone.
Couldn't there be a scheme by which parents could reduce their taxes by privately educating their children, but only up to some portion of the public schools' savings from not having to educate those children?
