Should taxpayer dollars be used to fund private education?

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

should the people that do not use public schools have to pay school taxes? Should tax credit be given for tuition paid to private schools?

Absolutely not. The idea of a government supplied commodity is that you cannot opt out (of the burden or the benefit). It only works when participation is mandatory.

Opting out would eventually cause entire school systems to collapse. The costs to provide an entire education system are not incremental - schools, once built must be paid for. If a school is built for 1,000 kids and 300 opt out that leaves the remaining 700 families to cover for the 300 that left.

And it kind of kills me to hear the argument: why should a bright kid be forced to stay in a bad public school when the state could send him to a good private school? Some might worry about the one bright kid in a bad school. I worry about the 99 kids behind the bright kid that no one seems to care about. The bright kid should stay and the 99 kids who've been cheated of a quality education should be sent to private school to catch up.

The federal government needs to exit stage left and leave educating our most precious national resource, our children, to the state and local level. That's the first step towards closing the gap between public and private schools and making the entire question (the original question) moot.