[chlodwig]

I dislike the perversity of taxing people than only giving the money back to them if they arrange their life in a way that policy-makers prefer (two income family). I especially dislike it when the subsidized choice of institutional childcare is more inefficient (paying for a lot of overhead), worse for the environment (extra people commuting), and worse for the kids (kids in groups that are classes that are too large for their age, taken care of by a rotating cast of minimum wage workers instead of by their own parent). And yes, I think parents who successfully home-school their children should be given the money that government schools would have cost them.

[libraryatnight]

This strikes me as part of the disease of thinking like a tax payer and not a citizen. It's about the service/resource availability, not the money. And your system seems to create more perversion than what you're reacting to - a bunch of people keeping score to make sure they get theirs.

[mothballed]

In AZ we offer ESA to homeschoolers, vouchers to charter or private school kids, and then normal tuition free public schools.

That way the service/resource is available to all children regardless of who the parent picks to provide it, according to what the family sees as their best option. It's not about who gets the money, just that the resources are available.

I think very rarely does the state or society have a better view in aggregate of what is best for each family, particularly when you consider the asymmetry of millions of families having time and information to contemplate their circumstance vs voters or bureaucrats having complete inability to put any real thought on the child on a per-child basis.