Shitty parents are not the fault of a CHILD.
Offering a child a safe space, food, and possibly education is the least we can do as a society.
One of the most fundamental parts of human nature is that parents want to see their children do well, and it's often the biggest reason why people toil and overcome great difficulties instead of settling for the minimum it takes to sustain themselves -- all so that their children might enjoy a life better than theirs. Once government steps in between that relationship and guarantees that children will be fine no matter what the parents do or don't do, you remove that important incentive.
Should we let children born to poor parents starve or dumb parents stay uneducated? No, let's do what we can to alleviate that. But how far will you go to ensure that your parentage has no effect whatsoever on your life? Clearly it's not my fault that my parents aren't Yao Ming (7'6") and Ye Li (6'3"), but nevertheless I shouldn't expect to have the same chance at making the NBA as their children. Then why should a child who was born to parents who don't value the qualities it takes to succeed be equally successful as one who was born to parents who did?
In other words, how high should your equalizing bar go, to remove the influence of parents on children, especially in the face of the fact that public educational outcomes in this country are stubbornly refusing to budge as the amount of money spent per pupil rises year after year?
There is legitimate debate to be had here, beyond just downvoting me and calling me an unsympathetic child-hater.
Ruthlessly optimizing use of "the public's money" is not inherently virtuous, but providing the universal opportunity for education is. If it is spent to offer an education, and that offer is not accepted, it is still money well spent.
