I always thought that school choice means a system that funnels taxpayer dollars to any school, public or private, based on student attendance. Parents can choose to send their children to public school, if they feel the outcome will be superior to alternatives.

Public schools are by definition taxpayer funded, so I wouldn't describe allocating tax money to them as "funneling". And of course, absent school choice policies, parents are still free to send their children to private school — they just wouldn't receive public funds to do so (which is why the name is sneaky). But yes, you're correct.

That is what school choice is,

Every parent has a voucher, that voucher can be redeemed at a school of their choice, could be the public school, could be a private school, etc.

It is important to note that that voucher only has a fixed value so those parents choosing to send their children to private schools still need to make up the difference out of pocket. That results in a wide variety of school choice for the rich and a smaller number of choices for those less well off. This voucher results in funds being diverted from public schools while the capacity requirements on those public schools may not be impacted but there is a larger issue IMO. If the more influential parents move their children to private schools then the amount that voucher should cover becomes less important and various parties can argue to shrink the voucher as a cost saving measure - that will end up strongly effecting those residents with less wealth since the money they are paying toward the value of that voucher is being multiplied due to the effect of progressive taxation brackets - while the more affluent residents will end up paying less money overall the smaller the voucher is since their tax revenue is going to subsidize school vouchers at large.

School vouchers can easily lead toward incentivizing minimizing education spending.

Oh also, private schools are often not held to the same standards of avoiding religious teaching as public schools are (by virtue of being a public service). The result is that the vouchers can end up funding religious education, but that's a whole other can of worms.

It is worth noting that many area;s where this has been tried the private schools were more than capable of providing better education for the same money that the public schools do since the public schools are wasteful and have no incentive to spend tax payer money wisely

It is completely false to charatice a school choice program as "more choices for the rich" as the rich already have those choices, poor and middle class people have zero choice because their money has already been taken to fund the public schools. redirecting this money to better more efficient systems is preferred and gives the poor and middle class choice that is normally reserved for the wealthy

>> This voucher results in funds being diverted from public schools

yes, that is by design and the desired outcome of libertarians.

>>Oh also, private schools are often not held to the same standards of avoiding religious teaching as public schools are (by virtue of being a public service). The result is that the vouchers can end up funding religious education, but that's a whole other can of worms.

Another red herring and strawman, but I (and most libertarian) are fine with the limited amount of religious education that would result from school choice if it means dismantling the failed and unethical public school system we have today.

I am sure you are a huge supporter of the Public School System and see nothing systemically wrong with it. We disagree with this position

> I am sure you are a huge supporter of the Public School System and see nothing systemically wrong with it. We disagree with this position.

I do actually see a lot wrong with the school system, I think the fact that education is largely funded from local property taxes goes strongly against most ideals around American opportunity and that the highly localized management means that a cartel of local officials can run a system into the ground with only limited options available to the DoEd to address is quite problematic.

There's a bunch of things wrong with the school system, certainly, but I can't see how partial privatization would do anything but exacerbate the issues.