Except that public education is hardly “free”.
People don’t seem to realize, or want to know, that anything “free” from the government comes with a price tag called “taxes”.
That’s why I put it in quotes.
“Free” isn’t free, even if it’s a Covid shot, farm subsidies, school lunches, loan forgiveness, or the EPA handing out wads of cash to green business ideas...
Worse yet, folks in government have an accounting system that basically rewards waste (if you don’t use it, you lose it). It’s almost the end of the federal fiscal year...
Government has no real concept of risk. They are generally risk adverse because the concept that things with a reward usually have some degree of risk associated with them is foreign. There is no bottom line, concept of ROI, or customer.
Government run anything turns into the US Postal Service, VA, or public schools. They are disconnected from the customer since there is no direct payment. The actual customer (students and parents) in a public school have no control because they lost the power of the purse. The school gets paid by a government, not you. So guess how much you really matter?
That is why a voucher system would turn this situation around, but it’s also why the teachers unions, even the government bureaucracy opposes this idea, they want to control the money and outcome. You’re just supposed to pay and be happy with whatever pungent smelling government cheese they serve you.