Education should be funded by vouchers granted to individual families, not public schools.

It is no secret that public schools in this country are floundering. Across the board, American students are slaughtered on international performance tests. Clearly, there is a problem. One look at the schools provided by the government clearly shows why. Complacency. Public schools have a de facto monopoly on education in America. They are supported entirely by involuntarily-given tax dollars by every taxpayer, whether their child attends the school or not. Even if a parent decides to send their child to a private school, they must pay for their child's education as well as foot the bill for a public school education via their local taxes. It is unfair to ask parents who choose to avoid public schools (schools that are in many cases sub-standard) to support them anyway. If a parent cannot afford to pay for both schools, the choice is made for them; public schools only, unless you have lots of extra cash. As to the quality of education, again the public school system delivers a failure. Public schools do not match up to the performance of private schools, even the low cost charter schools that operate in urban areas. (Often these schools can make do with less money than public schools receive and still generate a healthy profit.) Private schools have to compete to earn funding; if their school were of substandard quality, no one would pay to send their child there and the school would go under. Public schools are funded out of the taxpayer's pocket, like it or not. They do not have to attract customers, or compete to keep them. Unless a family can find a low-cost school, or is somewhat wealthy, public schools are their only option. This is not to say that education should be entirely privatized. Despite its many problems, the basic idea of providing an education to all citizens has benefited our society greatly. Therefore, a combination of systems should be implemented. A system where schools can compete to win customers and make a profit, but where parents do not necessarily have to pay the full cost of their child's education. This is where the voucher system comes to the rescue. In the voucher system, each student has x amount of dollars "attached" to them, to be spent on education. That money is given to any school the parents choose to educate their child. If the cost of the school is less than or equal to the amount on the voucher, the child gets a free education, same as he or she would at public school. If the cost is more, however, it is up to the parents to foot the higher bill. This system has been studied statistically as well as tried and proven. There are several voucher or voucher-like programs in various states. The Friedman Foundation studied these programs and found that all of them operated at least at financial equilibrium; most actually produced a tax savings for the state. (Compare that to the average government program that runs several billion dollars in the red.) As to the quality of education in this system, one need only look at the Dutch education system. Their school choice system operates cheaper and better than the current American system by a wide margin. (Dutch high school students place much higher than Americans on scholastic performance tests.) Even in poor countries like Vietnam and the Congo, private schools are appearing. Like the charter schools in America, these schools offer a cheaper, better education than public alternatives. If this system can flourish even in the poorest nations, there is no reason it cannot succeed in America.