As a matter of principle, letting parents keep more of their own money to educate their children should not be thought of as unfair. The claim that such a deduction would be unfair is based on the premise that the government is entitled to all our income and that anything it lets us keep is a subsidy. That's an un-American idea to say the least. Far from being unfair, the deduction would actually create a more even-handed treatment of educational spending. Most public schools are supported by property taxes.
Property taxes are tax deductible.
Thus, parents' expenditures on public schooling are tax deductible. But their expenditures on other forms of education are not. Our proposal would remove that bias by extending the deduction to alternative schooling. The tax relief would not be as great for families in a lower bracket, although it might be enough to stimulate the launching of low-cost neighborhood private schools. The deduction might also prompt some parents to consider homeschooling, which more and more families are finding to be the best alternative of all.