Private vs government funded education (especially for poor/minority students)

My husband and I had an interesting conversation tonight and I’m wondering what others think. (I’m a high school math teacher for context, and he works with high school athletes.) It was about the merits of reducing taxes by the amount that goes towards education and then having students pay “tuition” to attend what would now all be private schools. The tuition would be the amount they were already paying in taxes anyway, so anyone who was paying taxes would technically be able to afford it. The goal would be more buy in because students are actually paying to be there and they are going to the school they chose, as well as improving schools because they are now competing like businesses. And students could go to any school of their choosing based on what kind of programs they’re looking for rather than automatically attending the public school they are zoned for. The conversation included A LOT of questions and concerns, but the main one was this: even though it’s not actually costing any more money than the family was already paying in taxes, how would this affect our poor and minority students? Would they even end up going to school at all? What other educational systems/overhauls do you think would be beneficial to better serve our nation’s underprivileged children?

Submitted July 19, 2020 at 08:52PM by ShammyBug https://ift.tt/32Gko1j