However, taxes keep going higher and higher. The public school establishment adamantly opposes sharing any of this with non-state schools. Charter schools are only “semi-private,” The controlling idea is that every child is a ward of the state, that if you want an upgraded education for the child in your custody, then it has to come out of your pocket. To put it another way, only the rich and other members of “the ruling class “really get to “own” their children.
Public schools cannot reform because the system is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies are unable to reform themselves.
Why are bureaucracies unworkable?
They contradict the laws of human nature, giving no incentive to improve since the teacher is neither rewarded or punished for doing a good or bad job. No competition is at work since they have a captive audience and are unaccountable to the consumer (parent).
In the words of the brilliant Ludwig von Mises, “In the bureaucratic machine of socialism the way toward promotion is not achievement but the favor of the superiors.”
In fact, teachers who are efficient incur the wrath of their peers (”You make the rest of us look bad”).
Eventually, the tax-payers will revolt. Here in Washington, the majority of the people has passed a two-thirds vote requirement to raise taxes multiple times. The courts keep invalidating it.......but judges up here are elected too. I eventually think that there will be active campaigns against certain judges specifically targeting their votes to keep or rescind that two-thirds requirement.
And "the internet" is making possible a low-cost (almost free) educational option that bypasses the centralized schools completely. See "Kahn Academy".