Why cut funding to public schools?

I sometimes hear people who are generally in favor of smaller government express that they would like to see more funding go to k-12 schools, or lamenting the occasional loss of funding. I think "what if we reduce funding to 0?" But if that seems too radical, then you could imagine that we are just talking about cutting funding by 10%.

The logic behind increasing funding to public schools is probably that education is good, and so we should be willing to spend a lot of resources on it. I completely agree! However, do good teachers or a desire for education disappear when less tax money is spent on education? Not necessarily; the resources still exist, and can be accessed and nurtured by people outside of the government sphere.

Take housing, for example. Say that the government had been building houses for everybody, and then it stopped. Do people stop having houses? Of course not; people start building houses themselves, and they are probably built more efficiently and uniquely fit to our individual needs.

Evidence that there is not a link between public spending on education and test scores could have to do with the fact that people substitute; those resources are freed up to do other good things, possibly things that help test scores as much as public spending would.

Just to better understand, I will give some examples of how the use of resources could change if public school funding is reduced.
1) People retain those tax dollars and spend them on getting private education for their kids, which could be in the form of more piano lessons, math tutors, etc.
2) People decide that more education isn't what their family most needs and buy higher quality food or more vacations with their retained tax dollars.
3) People are irresponsible and spend their additional money on drugs or alcohol.
4)...

If we think option 3 or some other negative option is most likely, then perhaps we don't want to cut taxes. The important point is that we get more of something when we give less to public schools.¹

The best way to use our resources will change, and the decisions that normal consumers make help us to reach the most efficient use of resources.

Cutting public spending will give way to the private market, which would allow the most effective ways of educating people to thrive and the less effective ways to die.

Now I know that a lot of people disagree with this, and I would love to hear you expound on your reasoning! In fact, I did an anonymous survey (I have very diverse Facebook friends so I'm sure it's a very representative sample of the world ; ) ) and discovered that 11/15 people disagree with cutting education spending by 10%.
3/15 agree with the cut, and 1 would like to learn more (hopefully that one is reading this). All three that agreed chose to give comments on the survey, and only two of the eleven that disagree gave comments. So I would love to hear your comments now : )

---

1 If you're worried about who receives the resources, and not just if they're used efficiently (meaning you're worried about inequality) and don't think that charity funds and volunteer teaching (if it wasn't socially awkward, I think I would pay people to let me teach them basic economics, please contact me if interested) will cover what society really wants, then we can still tax the rich and redistribute cash, and then the poor will make their own choice with regard to whether they spend it on education or not. I think sometimes we're pretty quick to assume that we know what's best for the poor better than they know for themselves.^↩

example of a less centralized system in the U.S.