re: Yes!!! Alabama to become 11th state in the union with school choice. The bill passed!

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Then no, I don't have a problem with homeschools having those things and using the funding the schools would have used to purchase them.

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You are correct, of course, that there's really no difference between parents who homeschool buying those things or the school buying them, but I would prefer a third option.

State run schools in their current form are obsolete and a waste of money. Any student in 2024 with a laptop and a decent internet connection has access to more information than we had access to in our entire high school back in the 80s, and that's true of any school anywhere.

There's no reason to force kids to attend (which IMO is unconstitutional anyway) a state institution like they are in some kind of work-release prison. At this point it should be obvious that while you can (kind of) force children to attend school, you cannot force them to learn while they are there...so why force them to be there? The ones whose families prioritize education will learn and the ones whose families don't, won't, no matter what you do or don't do.

The best thing we could do is develop a national online curriculum for all students past, say, 6th grade, cut the number of teachers down to a small fraction of the number we currently employ, and have them tutor specific concepts instead of teach whole classes.

In other words, the student is responsible for attempting to learn the material and only sees the teacher/tutor when he or she encounters something he/she can't figure out. They get tutored on that specific concept until they master it, then go back to learning by themselves again. Go at your own pace, you graduate when you pass the graduation exam (which would replace the current ACT/SAT, and it would change and be different every sitting), no grades, just 80% to pass the midterms and finals for each course, and those could be standardized and the same for every student (want to cheat on those? Go ahead. You still have to pass the graduation exam).

We'd spend a fraction of the money, even if we bought every student in America a laptop every three years and paid for them to have internet at home.

I get it. We won't ever do it, no matter how obviously obsolete our system is.

But it's important to note the real reasons we won't do it. We won't do it because:

1. We wouldn't be able to funnel so much welfare through a system like that

2. We wouldn't be able to indoctrinate students as easily, because parents would see exactly what was being taught (remember teachers hiding material from parents during COVID)

3. Too many people wouldn't be willing to give up the free babysitting

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What type of cost and spending governance is being placed on private schools that receive Public money?

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What type do you want to see? Sounds like you have something in mind already.

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I'm not even okay with schools using taxpayer funding to buy half the shite they do, particularly as they fail at teaching the basics.

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Well this is a different discussion. If we're talking about halting the use of funding for certain purposes by ALL entities, then that is a fair discussion and perhaps I would agree. My point in this discussion is different though. Homeschoolers should not be held to a higher standard for use of funding than public schools and private schools would be.

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but have you had to interview any recent grads who went to college during COVID?

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Yes.

They seem to not be any more deficient in social skills than the kids before and after COVID. COVID didn't do that. Cell phones and email and social media and parents over functioning for children did.

And it's the state's responsibility to make sure that kids have social skills?

I don't think so.

You said it yourself. Parents who care make an effort. If the parents who homeschool now can do it, why can't everyone do it?

Also, I think you might be forgetting that under the plan I laid out, kids still go to school up to roughly 6th grade just like they do now. When they are that young they don't read and do basic math well enough to learn on their own yet.

Finally, I think it would be a great thing (although not an obligation) for schools to continue to offer the stuff that they won't budget for now. P.E. classes. Like, real P.E. classes. They could even have intramural leagues.

Art and band and choral and theatre, etc. Because it does require other students to do those things.

It doesn't require other students to learn about the Cold War or cell biology.