> The fact that I can't register my child within any school in driving distance represents a problem to me.
Moving is the current market solution or private schools.
> For example, allow parents to use the taxes they are paying with any school. If I pay $5k in taxes annually, and the school 20 miles away pays $10k annually, then I can make up the $5k myself. The point is that I have a choice.
Sounds like a good solution. Not having children then I should also have the choice to not pay any tax towards other people's children's education.
> Sounds like a good solution. Not having children then I should also have the choice to not pay any tax towards other people's children's education.
I'd certainly be in favor of that. I don't expect anyone to subsidize my children's education. Granted, as one commenter pointed out, some people believe it to be a societal good (like state-sponsored health care), so you're likely to get a lot of pushback.
But I think the current system lacks the correct incentives. My theory is that free market competition among public schools, similar to what we have in universities, will align the incentives more than they do now. The first step is introducing consumer choice back into the system.
Making public institutions compete with each other for funding seems like a rather inefficient use of public resources.
Why not just remove the middle man and eliminate public education then?