Did you read my post? My point is that organizations like the Khan Academy drastically reduce the cost of education while keeping quality high, perhaps even higher than what's in many school classrooms today. Doing so allows more people to afford a good education.

The current public school program is essentially mandatory "education insurance". We as a society want an educated public, so we force everyone to pay for it. The problem is that it's administered by the government, so politicians and bureaucrats decide what's good for children instead of their parents.

The entire situation in Wisconsin would not exist if public school didn't exist and private school was affordable. I think things like the Khan Academy help move us towards that end.

I did read your post. And I think that the Khan academy is doing wonderful things. Both by presenting content in novel ways and also at incredibly low cost. Thats great.

But you seem to be tossing the baby out with the bathwater when you suggest that we put all of the money back in the public's pockets instead of in government coffers. I don't have a problem paying to improve the average level of education. I am just against inefficiency and waste, which is why I suggested vouchers directly back to families.

I guess I would get less than what I put in but thats ok with me.

Just because you "don't have a problem paying" doesn't mean I should be forced to. Public school is not a choice; it's force. And, as we're all too familiar, it's quite often not a very good education, especially in lower income areas.

I have a child and there's no way I'm sending him to government school. I want him to learn everything he can get his hands on, not just what some bureaucrat decides he should learn. I don't want his education focused on passing tests that somehow measure a school's effectiveness; I want him focused on learning.

Vouchers are an admission that public school is broken and that competition is needed. The system is funded by force, not by the market. Instead, I propose that we stop trying to fix a broken system and instead replace it with one that works and isn't governed by politicians.

Unless you describe the entirety of your obligation to society as "force" (All taxes, the requirement to abide by laws, facing ostracisation for failing to be polite/deferent where society deems appropriate) I think your use of the term is disingenuous. I could equally say that "I do not wish to replace a system dedicated to the public good with a system motivated purely by greed" if I wanted to be equally disingenuous.

Personally I believe that the current US educational "reform" movement is presenting a false dichotomy and that education can be reformed and made better without falling back on "Free market makes it better" because demonstrably in many cases is does _not_.