If the public schools lose money because we homeschool, where does that money?

They don't lose LOCAL money, but certainly matching federal funds they DO lose. That's based on enrollment numbers. Our school district got into terrible trouble because it counted the part-time kindergartners as full-time students for a couple of years, and they got twice as much federal funding for those particular students as they should have. When it was found out, the district ended up owing a few million to pay back what they shouldn't have gotten.

Where I live, in Alberta, Canada, you get some of that money back. My government gives me funding to homeschool my kids. You don't just receive the cash though. You sign up under a supervising board that keeps track of what you're doing, provides PATs (the Canadian version of the SATs) and channels the funding to you based on how aligned you are to the provincial standards. You can either use purchase orders at the local homeschool store or purchase your materials elsewhere and send in the receipts. For their part, the board provides sports, workshops, socials, field trips, outings, grads, proms, you name it. People on here keep telling me all this is not true, which is amazing considering I've been receiving $1300 per kid, per year, for the last six years and we attend no less than three extracurricular activities a week.

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The district "loses" state funds. The state pays each district a certain amount (that also comes from your taxes) for each student who is enrolled full-time. The district would not get those funds.

In addition, the school district would not have to buy books for your child, nor pay for the many other things that a child in school uses. So, they aren't getting money from the state, but they aren't using funds either.

And yes, part of your property taxes go to the school district, regardless of whether you have children in public school or not. People without children also help pay for the public schools. As do people with children in private schools. The idea is that all of society helps pay for public education since it benefits all of society to not have a lot of children running around illiterate, without supervision during the day, probably getting into trouble with the law. Just like we all pay taxes for highways, even if we don't use them; we all pay for police and fire protection, even if we don't use them; etc. As a society we pay for many things that benefit society as a whole...

they give up $75 credit for buying educational materials to the homeschooling parents where I live. You have to send in the repceits though for everything you bought related to education and get compensated for it.

If the school doesn't receive funding the government officials use it for other things like police. The property values are falling anyways so they are getting greedier than ever. They get less property tax revenue

Most school funding comes from local property taxes and state taxes. When more children are homeschooled, the taxes are coming in still, but the school budgets are smaller. It would mean there would be more money in the state or local budget for other items. And trust me, they'll find a way to spend it. Libraries, police services, fire, social services, they're all funded through state and local taxes as well. Tax bills aren't itemized, except when a local city passes a schools tax. Our city has a local supplementary schools tax, (property tax), but not all cities do.

NO NO NO. Homeschool Myth Number 856

The public schools do NOT lose money when homeschooled children are not enrolled.

The public schools receive local, state and federal funding to provide an education for every child that IS enrolled. They cannot lose money for a child that is not enrolled because they never had it in the first place.

The only way I can see them losing money is if they illegally enroll a homeschooled child, the state learns of it and goes after the money which was fraudulently given to the school district.

In other words, homeschoolers SAVE the taxpayer from having to pay for their children's education AND they pay taxes so someone else's child can attend public school. Now, I ask you, whose losing money on the deal?

They save money they dont lose it. If your sent to privet school its a boat load of $$$ the town doesn't have to spend on your education. The money is still there, its just not spent on you. In my small town 80% of the budget is spent on education.