As a libertarian, of the ancap variety, I am fully in favor of abolishing public schools, compulsory attendance laws, and allowing education to be fully privatized. However, I’m wondering if anyone knows of studies that compare the costs of public schools compared to that of private schools. I realize public school budgets are not always transparent, and this poses a problem of course in noting the real costs. I have only found one paper by the Cato Institute that looked at this issue. I’m looking for insight and discussion on this issue.
You may have more luck researching home schooling avenues, parents who home school track costs pretty well. Some of those websites might break down overall costs with comparisons. I’m not aware of specifics, though.
I’ve aggregated some articles on education in the education section of LibertyHQ:
http://candlemind.com/projects/progclub/file/michael/edu.php
I think there were some studies in there.
Specifically, this article appears to be what you seek:
http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/they-spend-what-real-cost-public-schools