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That's all well and good, but freedom to choose can also be done within a public system.

Freedom only gets you so far as your choices go. Freedom to choose between (bad) products is freedom, but not by definition better. There's no guarantee that private schools perform better. They might, or they might cut costs on everything to optimise the money they get out of schoolfunds (they would if they would have little competition and there's a minimum amount of children you need to even be able to run a school - meaning it's not like you'll have fifty choices).

So one problem with schools is that they are geographically bound to an area and therefore you don't have a lot of competition. There won't be 20 schools in the same community to pick from and a school's capacity is limited. So eventually those private schools will say "Stop. We got enough children, go find somewhere else." And if schools would be "competing" then the biggest school would have the lowest cost, have the best allowances for teachers and then you get whole different problems and might run others "out of business" due to being too costly.

See, if for instance a school had bad results, then they might lose entrants, lose money for the next year and thus have to cut on costs, might have to even resort to firing teachers or getting cheaper (worse) ones and end up being even less competitive. Competition between schools is one thing, thinking of schools as a free market where schools are companies that are allowed to go bankrupt is an entire other! The 'product' of a school is people! You can't play with people's lifes as were they commodities. That's unethical.


Whether or not it sounds socialist to provide everyone with good schooling, it does form the basis for creating chances in life. Chances to "live that American dream". Good schooling, government funding or otherwise, is exceptionally important to get ahead in life. Not just as individuals, but as companies and nations. And IMO that's worth quite a bit of tax payer's money. Personally, I see a public system as an investment in the economy. Even if people don't think they see direct benefits out of it because they have no children to be educated or something, there's still the products they buy, their own education they had, the housing they live and work in, the roads and bridges they drive on, the healthcare provided, etc. All of that wasn't possible without decent schooling. And decent schooling is impossible to provide to all without decent funding and enforcing that everyone has a chance to be taught.



Either way, it can become far too expensive for a lot of people to enter if private sectors would be allowed to run all schools. And what if private schools decide it is not interesting to build schools in small communities because there's no growth potential and no money to be made? Those people should just let those communities die?

In a fully private sector of education, a lot of people would have less, and a lot won't have any choice. And since less people would pay for a public system, those people have to even pay more than they would under a pure public system, just to even get access to the crappier public system. Meanwhile the quality of those public systems would diminish as the headhunting would ensure good quality teachers move to private schools. Private schools would reject people from certain social backgrounds and that'd be their... "freedom" to do, giving these people less chance to move ahead in society.

The thing is that private schools can monopolise areas and regulate entry themselves too, so no, it doesn't solve any issues. Maybe it'd solve some of yours, but is it a good solution for everyone? No.


Then there's what is being taught at these schools. There's a good chance that people who fund these private schools get a say in the curriculum. I exagerated a bit before, but there's a very good chance that religious groups create private schools where they ban proper education like good teaching on evolution.

The local parents won't know, or they will even be stimulated by their church to send their children there. Creating nice cattle for the local baptist church? Maybe a scientology school/church?


Eh... Freedom to get indoctrinated is relative. Especially if your parents pick the school for you.


So basically what it comes down to as the better solution, IMO anyway, is creating a bit more choice within the current school system you have if it's under some sort of district policy rule where you have to enter within a certain bunch of schools. But most importantly, make sure that there are standards that have to be attained and can be verified, while those standards are set by a direct representation of people (with a check of secularity and independence based on law, could be constitutional or a school law, don't really care which, as long as it's not biased to any group).