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I don't think so because the American taxpayer shouldn't be paying for other children's education. Everyone should be paying for their own kid. It shouldn't be free, but parents should be charged a little each year.
I agree with Jared here. Although I wonder if the best route isn't to take government out of grade school all together. Private schools are expensive, but would cheaper private schools come along if we got away with the free* (free until you see that you're paying for it in taxes) public schools. Also people would have more money to pay for their kids education without tax dollars being taken from them for it. Also this would resolve a lot of the issues with disputes over how school is taught, since parents would all be free to choose which schools they were willing to pay to send their kids to.
The down side of course s that some people wouldn't be able to afford school at all, but many kids were always disruptive in the class room anyways. When school is a privilege you pay for instead of a guarantee, maybe that would help that situation. Perhaps some kids not going to school may not be such a bad thing.
I must have missed something. What are property taxes again? "Free?"
Externality effects of general education (less crime, better productivity, better public health, all of those are imposing potential or lost costs that would have to absorbed by the individual) make it worth paying for somebody else to get that education. So far as I can tell there are plenty of kids not going to school already (check the high school dropout rates). It doesn't seem to be working out that well in places where this is common.
Still, I wouldn't want to do this anything like the way we do it right now. Not even close. Tax credits would be far superior to compulsory public schools (and then people not sending children to those schools who then have to pay extra not to do so, which is absurd). At that point, competitive schooling, school choices exercised by parents instead of by location, and in particular the advantages of freer hand at curriculum would give us some advantages that we're often completely ignoring at present. Or are wasting by mandating courses that are utterly useless (and kids know it, which is why they are disruptive or drop out).
Dismantle the Department of Education. Take the federal government completely out of the education business.
School vouchers are the way to go.
Yea and of course teh government would be giving them a budget and all but the parents should be paying at least like $1000 a year having them go each year.
I don't know that might be a little too extreme for me, but I do see your point.
the middle-class is always the one getting screwed over in the end.
Free of what?
You tell me.
The ability of our nation to be productive depends on ensuring that all citizens are productive. If the vast majority of kids can't afford to go to school, everyone's standard of living will suffer, the crime rate will increase further if the poor can't compete for jobs and/or can't provide any useful service. Good education costs more than what the government collects in taxes and provides to public schools. Public schools, supported by property taxes and such provide the minimum education to people that can't afford private schools. I went to a public school all the way through high school. Now I am trying to learn on my own all of the things that I should have learned kid.