[wyager]

> Is that also wrong?

Possibly, but in a less odious way. Public school has at least two benefits over paying people to have children; 1) it probably doesn't incentivize people to have kids, but it does (probably) benefit the kids that already exist and 2) it might actually have a positive net value to the people being forced to pay for public school but aren't using it. In particular, public schools serve as a form of division of labor, where the adult/child ratio is much lower, freeing up a huge number of parents to remain in the workforce instead of staying home and watching the kids all day. This, I would argue, is most low-quality lower-division public schools' primary function; it's not about the kids learning, it's about freeing the parents' schedules for 8-9 hours a day.