Compulsory Education

[Hanyou]

In most (if not all) countries in the developed world, there seems to be at present a consensus that not only is there a "right to education," but that education is required. So ingrained has this idea become in our culture that the question about whether it is the government's place to mandate education is hardly even controversial.

That is exactly the question at hand.

Topic:

Should the government require that certain levels of education be provided to its citizens (primarily children)? To what levels of education, and to what fields, should this mandate stretch? Assuming the government does mandate education, how should the government define it?

A bonus question: Taking local/national (or, for the Americans out there, State/Federal) governments into account, which level of government should deal with this issue?

Below are resources you can (but are by no means required to) use. Feel free to introduce others into the topic, or PM me if you find some more useful ones; I'll make sure to include them in this post and credit you.
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Recommended reading (feel free to cite!):

Murray Rothbard's "Education: Free and Compulsory" []:A comprehensive look at the rare view that education should be neither "free" nor compulsory from an austrian/libertarian standpoint. Fair warning: this view is extreme and even those who believe education should not be compulsory may only agree in part. Also, this article is long so feel free to skim it if you feel inclined to read it at all.

I'll find a fitting pro-compulsory article later, but they are hard to find considering that compulsory education is the status quo.

[eharper256]

I believe it is the duty of the government to provide at least basic education to its citizenship. Without this obligation; only the bourgeois and nobility would ever get educated, and progress of civilization as a whole would be slowed.

This is especially important these days as well, because being ignorant of your place on the planet when there are SO many people is...well... almost insulting...

Not to mention that, at the very least, having numeracy and literacy is almost required and expected in the developed world.

True, things being ingrained on the consciousness of the people is not positive in vast majority of cases; but here I believe that it is.

On the other hand, I can certainly see the argument that it is better to not have any compulsory education at all than having the government make a botched job of it. There have been innummerate examples of good home-schooled personages. They, however, rely on a few factors: like an adaptive, patient parent who is already educated well themselves; material to do self teaching, and perhaps most importantly, time to make it a reality: society often pressures adults into work, leaving them little time to spend with their offspring and almost certainly not enough to imprint a sufficient education single handedly.

Similarly, there is the issue that having too much 'educated' population actually has a negative effect on the protereliat. Educated people do not want to be blue collared workers and typically strive for upwards movement in society; which results in the foundation of society straining to support the ever growing upper levels rather than keeping a neat pyramid shape.

However, this is perhaps more the fault of how capitalism works than actually the fault of compulsory education.

Which is not to say that I think current communists should take over either. Marx and Lenin would be rolling in their grave seeing what has happened to their ideals (although, really, it is inevitable, as people are just naturally individualist and good at bloodshed; making the idea of a PROPER shared social strata rather alien to most). In my view, society should indeed be bound by an ultimate goal; but it should NOT be money.

Finally, to consider the kids. What kid doesn't want to nuke their school? What teenager doesn't look at their compulsory work and just want to burn it all and settle for a life on the road? A fair few (even if its just in passing thought and for various reasons). Nevertheless, most adults end up introspecting on how good their school days seemed and then assume that it is also in their kids best interest to have the same.

Sometimes, they may right. It's really impossible to know, in truth.

[Kaname]

[Hanyou]

[eharper256]

[scy]