Well, then ask yourself this: When has a federal subsidy ever come without attached regulatory strings?
To tell me I'm wrong because my objection doesn't match up to your imagined future is rather dubious. It becomes a matter of your imagination versus my own. I'll keep mine, thanks.
"A simple retort to this is to ask: "Where has this happened?" Nowhere, it's never happened that voucher systems put a crimp in either private or homeschools."
"Well, then ask yourself this: When has a federal subsidy ever come without attached regulatory strings?"
Also, I'd point out that "federal subsidy ever come without attached regulatory strings" is mostly irrelevent as every voucher proposal I know of is at the state level.
At the Federal level, there is that tuition tax credit idea, which I also favor (and you should too!), but it's not the same as a voucher, and it also, btw, would not add 'strings' to schooling.
Federal regulation is possible because of the hooks of the *public* school system. Loosen that monopoly and those hooks too will be loosened.
"To tell me I'm wrong because my objection doesn't match up to your imagined future is rather dubious."
It's not a matter of imagination on my part to tell you that in every use of vouchers and in every voucher legislative proposal, the result is more choice and more openness and less regulatory red tape. Moreover, these proposals don't impact homeschooling at all - Cleveland, Edgewood, etc.
The whole 'regulation' myth misses the purpose of why we regulate in the first place - we regulate monopolies because we can't think of better ways to make them perform. As a poster put it:
"If we had TRUE school choice, where funds were attached to children and not schools, less regulations would be needed because the consumers (parents and students) would regulate the quality of the schools. If a school were not satisfactory, parents wouldn’t send their kids to it, and it would lose money and either have to change or go out of business."
So, in sum, this is not a matter of 'imagination', it's a matter of changing the regulatory model from a monopoly one to a choice one. Let competition regulate quality, not red tape!
Vouchers is just a vehicle but the overall goal should be to give parents and students choice and control over education. Do you agree with that vision and ideal? Then it is a matter of asking how best to get there. I'm all ears if you have a better idea than vouchers as a way to get the $500 billion and 50 million child school system moved away from the Stalinist Govt socialized monopoly system.