You can't put your child in a private school in Houston, Texas for $10K...better make that $25K!

Ayn Rand argued for tax credits for private education as a means towards breaking up the government school monopoly in her 1972 article "Tax-Credits for Education", reprinted in her anthology Voice of Reason. That article was in response to a Nixon proposal to impose a national sales tax to expand the public school system and government funding at all levels of education, but she first advocated education tax credits in her Los Angeles Times column in 1962.

Tax credits allow taxpayers to pay themselves for their own or others' education tax free. They are not vouchers, which are government payments.

Ayn Rand opposed the expansion of government subsidies for education, including vouchers. Direct government funding requires government controls since the government must be responsible for what it is paying for.

As long as taxation is still recognized as taking money that belongs to the taxpayers -- in contrast to the increasingly promoted progressive notion that tax cuts are an "expense" to the government -- tax credits are less susceptible to accompanying complete control and they limit the inevitable growth in government spending for new government programs.

Tax credits also avoid the inherent contradiction of government voucher payments to religious schools: Public funds to support religious schools are and should be unconstitutional, yet children of religious parents should not be denied what is available to the non-religious.

Tax credits are not a permanent solution, but are a common sense first step towards opening up school choice on a free market. They are opposed by the teachers' unions and statists of all kinds, whose monopoly situation is far more entrenched now than when Ayn Rand was writing. The unions are more powerful, the scope, amount and intensity of government funding and controls are much greater, and government is far more entrenched into funding and controlling what is left of "private" education.

At this point almost anything that increases school choice would probably help, but we must always advocate and maintain proper principles in reform measures on the way to private choice. Adopting statist collectivist premises inherent in plans like vouchers only further entrenches the problem.

I agree that something needs to be done about the education monopoly. I argue for tax credits as an alternative to the danger of vouchers and how even the poorest could be served with tax credits.

Yes, that's why I argue for tax credits.

Oh, it's from the article about Anthem, not the one about vouchers - so no direct link! But glad you like the quote.
On top of everything of course the kids love their technology, while reviling capitalism! Oh, the stories I could tell you about that and college students...

In reply to qhrjk's comment: The good news in your comments is that you (and your classmates) were required to read Anthem. You are lucky to have a teacher who recognizes the value of that book and I suspect the teacher is delighted to have even ONE student get it ;-)

I can understand your pessimism about your peers, but I'm hopeful you're wrong. I'm hopeful that there are more people out there whom we can reach and I think using every means possible is important.
The graphic novel is true to the book, so anyone reading it gets Rand's actual words.
So many kids are just so jaded by school, they hardly respond to anything they "have' to read. That's a huge problem. But this might reach them even when it wouldn't if they "had" to read it.
Oftentimes the disruptive kids in class are intelligent ones who haven't come across stuff that makes enough sense, so they checked out.
If we can reach that active minority, that's great! If we can influence the sense of life of others, that's important too.

Thanks for catching that, I fixed it! Recently published at FEE. I messed up uploading several things at one time. ;-(

In the article I outline the dangers of vouchers and offer an alternative to get kids out of the government schools.

Yes, and why have public schools at all? There are better alternatives to helping everyone get an education.

Exactly! You know the story? For those who don't: Hillsdale was an abolitionist school from the start. Then the Feds tried to make them do affirmative action and they thought that was discriminatory, so they opted out of the govt loans, etc.

That varies state by state. Illinois has no educational standards for private schools, just hours of instruction, health code, fire code, be non discriminatory.
But that's a good idea for the states that do have educational regulations for private schools.

My article offers an alternative to vouchers.

Very well said.

Government should not be in the business of education. We need to take another path now. The system is collapsed.

Samuel Blumenfeld wrote an excellent book on the early history of American compulsory, state controlled education, Is Public Education Necessary?, Devin-Adair 1981. It is a lesson in the role of ideas in public policy and how, on the other side, ideas drove the movement for contemporary public school control. It started as an ideological religious battle by New England Unitarians afraid of Catholic immigrants influencing education.

Thanks and your way sounds wonderful, much like Montessori. FYI, Improv Comedy classes are integral to our Leap Year program!

No, we are against government "vouchers" as another expanding government-paid subsidy program that inherently includes more controls over all aspects of schools, not even limited to the curriculum. Tax credits means the taxpayer uses his own money tax free if he has it and chooses to spend it that way.

How is that "entirely" different?

The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend. There are a lot of ways to go wrong besides following DiBlasio. If you adopt whatever is done by someone you don't like as a standard for what not to do you are just as dependent on him as if you were to follow him. Independence requires thinking for yourself for what is right regardless of who else does or does not do it.

If you read the article, you'll see I'm not against other means of helping kids get out of the public school system and into good education. I outline the reasons why vouchers specifically are dangerous.