Taxpayer Funding for Religious Schools?

This article appeared onSubstack on June 13, 2023The state of Oklahoma hasrecently approved a  charter for the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, whose curriculum will include religious teaching. Taxpayers will fund the school, so a battle will ensue over whether such funding is desirable or constitutional.Economic reasoning suggests three possible justifications for government support of education.First, one person ’s education might benefit society more broadly. Economic productivity might be higher, for example, if everyone has mastered “the three Rs.” Some individuals, however, might ignore this “spillover” and therefore choose too little education relative to the social optimum.Second, people for whom education would be productive (by raising their future income) might underinvest due to myopia, suggesting that even without spillovers, the laissez ‐​faire level of education might be too low. Some parents, in particular, might choose too little education for their children unless policy makes education cheaper.Third, people for whom education would be beneficial, with or without externalities, and even without myopia, might have insufficient income to pay for private education and face difficulty in borrowing to finance such an investment (credit constraints).Reasonable people can debate whether these arguments are convincing. Each has some plausibility, yet each is easily overstated.In Libertarian Land, governments play no role in education, ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs