3 ms·

Agreed. Which makes me sad. The funds do exist, but it all goes to public education. One cannot opt-out of school taxes, even when one opts out of school. It is

by nibs 10y ago

Agreed. Which makes me sad. The funds do exist, but it all goes to public education. One cannot opt-out of school taxes, even when one opts out of school. It is not just an issue that is purely economic, the money exists, it just does not exist in the hands of the parents.

germinalphrase 10y ago
Possibly, but if the per pupil cost is between $6500-19800 (Utah and New York, respectively) would this amount of money free at least one parent to fully educate their children? If that were true, wouldn't it seem to follow that more people would do it? Public education must be - or at least have the appearance of being - a good deal economically.
- nibs 10y ago
  Probably not, unless you have 3+ kids. My Mom always worked park time, and we had a community that would get together and hang out and share in the child care. And you definitely have to make sacrifices, we grew up in the country in a pretty small house, etc. but we lived fairly well on 1.5 incomes.
emidln 10y ago
Part of this is that parents alone don't shoulder the burden of paying for their children's education. All taxpayers share in this. Exemptions or credits along these lines are short-sighted. You expose another issue that comes up frequently which is the idea that the cost per pupil is somewhat fixed in a region (for administrative purposes anyway) and so regardless of the school a parent choose for their child, the state should pay that school. As an extension, if the parent would choose to home school, that parent might be paid the prevailing rate for a child. I don't think that works on a number of levels (again, poor parents probably can't afford to not work for $6k for 9 months of the year). Perhaps combined with other social programs (such as a UBI), this would be more reasonable. I think there would be a huge media backlash over kids who end up with effectively no education due to parents just taking their kids UBI+their UBU+school fees and then letting the kids play video games all day (regardless of whether this actually happens or not). Standardized testing would probably become even more important as a means for the state to make sure that your children are actually being educated.

by nibs 10y ago

germinalphrase 10y ago

Possibly, but if the per pupil cost is between $6500-19800 (Utah and New York, respectively) would this amount of money free at least one parent to fully educate their children? If that were true, wouldn't it seem to follow that more people would do it? Public education must be - or at least have the appearance of being - a good deal economically.

nibs 10y ago
Probably not, unless you have 3+ kids. My Mom always worked park time, and we had a community that would get together and hang out and share in the child care. And you definitely have to make sacrifices, we grew up in the country in a pretty small house, etc. but we lived fairly well on 1.5 incomes.

emidln 10y ago

Part of this is that parents alone don't shoulder the burden of paying for their children's education. All taxpayers share in this. Exemptions or credits along these lines are short-sighted. You expose another issue that comes up frequently which is the idea that the cost per pupil is somewhat fixed in a region (for administrative purposes anyway) and so regardless of the school a parent choose for their child, the state should pay that school. As an extension, if the parent would choose to home school, that parent might be paid the prevailing rate for a child. I don't think that works on a number of levels (again, poor parents probably can't afford to not work for $6k for 9 months of the year). Perhaps combined with other social programs (such as a UBI), this would be more reasonable. I think there would be a huge media backlash over kids who end up with effectively no education due to parents just taking their kids UBI+their UBU+school fees and then letting the kids play video games all day (regardless of whether this actually happens or not). Standardized testing would probably become even more important as a means for the state to make sure that your children are actually being educated.