The system needs to be dismantled from the top down with the elimination of federal involvement in K-12 education as a starting point.
We actually agree on something.
Yes, a good first step would be to complete remove the federal government from any involvement in education and return all these responsibilities to the states.
A good next step would be to charge tuition to parents who use government schools. ( We do this for college and university now, ...and... Yes, many state constitutions would need to be changed. ) If parents were charged tuition, many may choose to use that money in a private setting rather than at the government school. In many areas it actually costs **more** to educate a government schooled child than it does to privately educate them. This fact might make private education very attractive to many.
Another step would be to reduce school taxes to those who pay private tuition, who subsidize the private education of another child, or who donate to a private tuition fund.
Eventually, as the private sector grows we could close down government K-12 schools.
there is going to be a certain amount of government bureaucracy involved.
Parents would only need to demonstrate a good faith effort. Why should parents be held to a higher standard than the government sets for itself? If complete illiteracy and innumeracy is enough for the government to pass a child from grade to grade ( and even issue a diploma) that should be the standard for parents. In other words how can the government enforce standards when it has none for itself?
Finally, many of the services that make educating the catastrophically handicapped child soooooo expensive are not really education expenses. They are instead the nursing and medical costs. Health insurance should be expected to cover the costs or earring aids, special computers, enlarged print readers and special glasses, interpreters, personal health assistants, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech and hearing therapy...etc.
I have suggested on other posts that "catastrophic education" expenses be part of every child's health insurance (private or government).
Everyone already pays "tuition" in the form of property taxes. Without the elimination of the school tax portion of that tax bill there will be no support for such a move. The problem with that is that in some areas it is not a delineated item of the tax bill and so it would be difficult to separate that portion of the property tax. Where I lived in Delaware the school tax, even though was on the same bill, was separate from, but based upon, my real estate tax. Where I live now in Virginia, it's an entirely different process. My property tax is paid to the county and then the county sets the school district budget.
If complete illiteracy and innumeracy is enough for the government to pass a child from grade to grade ( and even issue a diploma) that should be the standard for parents.
There you go, once again, with your biased broadbrushing. I know far more children who have been retained in a grade than have been passed onto the next grade when they should have been retained. In fact I know of only one, and that pass on was "politically" motivated. The school administration did not want to face the bad PR the parent was threatening if the child wasn't promoted. The administration also didn't want to risk the loss of money that was also threatened because this is a private school.
Threats of financial recourse tend to go both ways. While I see your point about the pulling of students from public schools can eventually force closure, it doesn't necessarily mean that the private sector can do any better.
I have suggested on other posts that "catastrophic education" expenses be part of every child's health insurance (private or government).
That actually makes sense, which is why it won't work. The insurance industry is not going to go along with that voluntarily, thus the government would have to force them to do so.
So, for the sake of argument, let's say we have eliminated the vast majority of government control of K-12 education, who is going to set the standards? Who will determine what is the standard for literacy and numeracy? You? Me? The high school drop out down the street?