Nobody likes paying taxes. It may not seem fair that homeschooling parents must pay for the public education of their neighbors’ children while also paying for the home education of their own family. But this is an unfair comparison.
Homeschoolers have voluntarily chosen to homeschool. They took on this responsibility. They would have to pay school taxes even if they didn’t have children, just like retirees continue to pay taxes when their children are grown and gone. This is the price we pay to live in a literate society. We should actually want our neighbors’ kids to grow up capable of holding a job.
Furthermore, it is important to understand that if we choose to enroll our children in a publicly-funded ESA program, we will have to follow the program’s rules and the program’s schedule. By doing so, we would have a limited choice in the curriculum used, and the method of instruction. Our religious beliefs would not prohibit us from having to teach objectionable material. The US Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that parents do not have the right to tailor public school programs to meet their individual religious or moral preferences. Our children’s bodies may have to be vaccinated and examined on the state’s timetable, just as their psyches would be prodded and poked through mandated transformative social and emotional learning. We should expect our children to become confused about their gender, knowing that they would be force-fed a steady diet of sexuality in order to reach assessment benchmarks. And by enrolling in a taxpayer ESA program, we would be required to accept all of these things in exchange for a “free” education.
Rather, we can happily say, “No, thank you!” to the free education, and continue to privately homeschool our children. When we form a “partnership” with the public school, we cede all the control to them, in exchange for that free education. We cannot take the free education and keep the control. It simply doesn’t work that way! What the government funds it always controls. Always! And that is as it should be, because the use of tax-funding demands accountability.