In short, they talk about it like it’s some kind of disease?
I do suspect that a lot of it is because they’re afraid of their children being exposed to “those people”, whatever that may mean, or being taught something that might lead to them questioning their parents’ views?
Because conservatives believe that is is a bureaucratic nightmare like the DMV, treats all children in a one size fits all manner, has a bloated administrative staff, is unduly influenced by teachers unions, corrupted by left wing teaching, and consistently passes on those who fail to grasp basic knowledge to inflate government imposed goals.
This is GQ, so a more thorough discussion of this shouldn’t be in this category.
The most outrageous thing I’ve heard one - and it was someone I know personally who has a master’s degree - was that public school teachers can take girls to get abortions during the school day without their parents’ knowledge or consent. I asked her where that happened, and she couldn’t tell me (go figure).
Conservatives may say this but clearly don’t believe it since their only proposals are to cut funding for education and try to pass laws limiting educational content. What you have stated is simply an example of the OP’s premise, not an explanation for it.
What I see more often is talking like their own public school system is fine, but that the whole thing in general is horrible.
I think it’s just the idea that something the government does could actually be good. They don’t notice or what to accept that the schools that underperform tend to have lower per-student funding, and that socializing the costs more would be the solution. If we pooled all the tax money for schools and then fairly handed it out to each school, things would be better. If private schools had to pay taxes to fund public institutions for the privilege of being to skip public schooling, that would get more funding.
Conservatives seem to me to believe that there is some sort of natural order where there are some people who are better than others, and deserve more. Exactly how those groups are divided changes—though the conservatives always consider themselves as part of the superior group.
That way, if conditions are bad for some people (who are not them) it can just be the natural order of things, rather than a problem that needs to be fixed. Such a belief lends itself well to lowercase-c conservatism, which is about preserving the status quo.
The answer is actually very simple. Conservatives (defined as those who identify as American Republicans, not necessarily intelligent traditional conservatives) hate public schools for the same reason that they hate universities. These are all institutions that impart knowledge, and since Republican beliefs are mostly counter-factual, facts and knowledge are a threat to their belief system. They consider it intolerable to have their tax money pay to teach their children about things like evolution, climate change, environmental responsibility, and gender and racial equality.