There is no unified libertarian response to this issue. Some libertarians would want no public schools and others see running schools as one of the few things they would want the government to do.

Personally I would like more competition in schooling. I would like for there to be some kind of a voucher system. Currently the government pays every public school some amount of money per child attending per day. In a voucher system the same thing would happen, except that the money would be tied to the child and not to a school. So if you live next to a piece of sh*t public school you could move your child to a different public school or a private school and the government would pay which ever school he went to the standard amount of money per child per day.

Forcing parents to send their kids to whichever school is closest or spend large sums of money on private schooling seems like a terrible idea to me. I would much rather the US school system be like Sweden's. Competition will make the schools better; a government enforced monopoly that can only be subverted by paying an arm and a leg to go to private schools will not.

Also keep in mind that what I wrote is not the typical libertarian response; there is no typical libertarian response on this issue.

Are there any other topics like public schooling

that libertarians dont agree on? 

Thank you very much, Jormungander, for your help.  I too belive that smaller government is the answer, which would explain my interest in libertarianism.  However there is more research to be done.

Out of curiosity, how would you propose to limit or regulate immigration?

That is exactly the kind of attitude libertarians are trying to fight against. The idea that we need make decisions for others because if people decided for themselves, some would decide wrong. I would rather allow some people to make poor decisions, rather than have all decision making taken away. If we allowed people to make education decisions, then many will make the wrong choice. That does not make our current system of sending children to the closest school available any better.

My public high school biology teacher danced around the topic of evolution. She didn't seem to want to just state it as fact. She would always phrase statements about it as though it might be true (not so subtly implying that it might not); rather than just using simple declarative sentences. We don't need to use private religious schools to deprive students of science educations; our public schools are doing that job just fine. I think that the dismal state of science education would improve if public schools were forced to compete with private schools. If vouchers were in place and there was a local private school who's students scored higher on science tests than the local public school, most parents would flee the public school like a sinking ship. Currently, teachers can not experience negative consequences no matter how poorly they perform. Even if a biology teacher lacks confidence in the existence of evolution, parents will have no choice but to subject their children to a sub-standard education (unless they are rich and can afford private schooling). We need a way for public schools to be placed in jeopardy; where if they don't perform well then they could loose most students to other, better schools. And as a consequence some parents will make the wrong choice of sending their kids to religious schools; that is the price of freedom.

I think a better solution would be if states funded public schools equally based on number of children in the school rather than the current method of funding them mainly through property taxes in the school district. That way there wouldn't be the extreme difference in performance between wealthy suburban and poor rural or urban schools.

Please note that the differences between public and private schools is greatly exaggerated - unlike public schools, private schools can pick and choose what kids they take, and can expel problem ones without having to still pick up the tab for their education. Not only that, parents who don't really care (a big problem in poor performing schools) are very unlikely to choose public schools. The other problem with the current system that makes the private schools look better is only the succesful parents who care will send them there - making it less likely they have parents who are addicts, single parents, working 2 jobs to get by, or any other problem that could affect how they do.

Public schools are tools of oppression. This invention was made compulsory by empress Mary Theresia, who needed a lot of obedient underlings, because she had some industrially rich areas to conquer militarily.  It certainly did it's good in educating people, but today we're all longing for freedom, justice, self-determination, love and peace and so on,and this type of schooling is not good for us anymore.
I appreciate the work of my countryman, John Amos Komensky, the teacher of nations, who humanized the schooling a lot. Schola ludus. But this humanization of dehumanized institutions must proceed. Rudolf Steiner did a great work on this, he invented Waldorf schools, from nursery school to university, which are much closer to  how children and young people should be educated today. Waldorf schools are very demanded among parents, there's everything better than in an average school. I'm sure there's much less chicane, drugs, crazy teachers, drunk teachers, jock gangs, (I've seen it all) and I believe there was not even one school shooting till this day.

Of course, there are complains, Jews complains that it's non-jewish, not-Christian-proof school that teaches *German* language, Christians complains that Rudolf Steiner was an occultist, pagan, that Nazis used some his writings, and so on. But the only complain what non-religional people can have, that there could be more science. Waldorf schooling is mainly focused on right hemisphere activities, while our conservative schooling worships maths and physics. (yuck)


As for the problem of immigrants, I don't think anything good about closing the borders. It's a guilt of USA for a large part, that there are poor and dying refugees, and this poverty must be dealt with. Closing of borders won't help, either you spend your economics on feeding the people, or on killing them, because they will give no other choice, they're desperate. While there will be a poverty abroad, from there will come either financially-poor immigrants, or kiloton-rich bombs.
Strict border policy will only encourage a more corruption among military/rangers and more ripping off the immigrants by smugglers.
Killing the people makes just more of the poor refugees and immigrants, it's no real solution. Neither is the economic system of powerful corporations, in close relation to politics. It's as bad as Church and state.
The only solution is to save the world from poverty, by worldwide sharing of capitalistic excessive resources. This is the only way how to stop immigrants, how to stop spending our economy on wars, and how to rise a living, moral and ecologic standards worldwidely and locally.

I completely understand your arguments and in principle strongly agree with them.  The problem is that in practice the general public in this country just aren't smart enough.  When over 50% of the people would voluntarily pay more money to send their kid to a lower quality school, then you run into a real problem where the good schools can't get enough students and are forced to close.

I'm split on this issue for this very reason.

I consider myself Libertarian, and even though a lot of public schools are shit, a lot of private schools are wack and over-priced. I feel like kids who attend public schools tend to experience more diversity and deal with more realism. It can help them learn how to deal with bullshit. I hated high school, even though I went to a very diverse and well-ranked place, but I wouldn't rather go to private school. One of the reasons school sucks so much is the inane repetition. Private schools, to me, would be much much worse, and much less diverse and interesting.

I babysat for a girl whose parents made her attend an expensive private Jewish school. It was tiny (bad when it comes to cliques and girls), and she wanted to transfer to public school because it "looked more fun." I felt bad for her.

Of course it depends on the situation and blah blah blah...but I'm not against public schools.