In my naive early days of dealing with the Maine bureaucrats, I could not understand their resistance to me teaching my own child.

 

If my wife and I wanted to help out by doing our own job ourselves, why would they object?  At first I reasoned that they must be offended -- that we should think we could teach our own children without any formal education. How dare we think we can do it better than they can!

 

Then I learned about the money.   I learned how school districts got their money -- how they got paid.  School districts receive a certain amount for every pupil enrolled in their public schools.  When a student goes to a private school, the public school loses the money for that student.  When a student is homeschooled, they lose the money for that student, too. Homeschooled and private schooled students are not on the public school roster, not counted in their “inventory."

 

When I learned to “follow the money,” I learned how the bureaucrats think.