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As I understand it, one of the biggest cost drains to public education is providing for mentally and physically disabled children. They're just vastly more expensive to teach than normal kids. And on top of that, if there's a slip in providing them good education, they're potentially able to sue, so even more costs have to be added to ensure that all education meets the legal requirements. If parents of normal children are effectively no longer subsidizing disabled children, educating disabled children will be very difficult.
"Don't destroy the price signal in order to transfer incomes."
It's vastly more beneficial to simply directly subsidize the education of mentally and physically disabled children while letting choice make things better for everyone else than to hobble the system for everyone.
Seriously. There is no good external reason to hide the ball that these students cost X dollars each to educate, whilst THOSE students cost 3X dollars.
If we agree it is important to educate the latter group, then assign 3X dollars for each of those students. Make it an open fact.
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