Should children be compelled to finish high school?

[loinburger]

Al would be fine if compulsory education were replaced with compulsory ditch-digging - the thing that's important is that it's compulsory.

[giblets]

Education should be compulsory because teenagers can not be expected to make legitimate life choices at their age. Requiring parental permission is a joke because you actually trust parents with those decisions? When you have high school drop-out mothers who had 2 kids by their 18th birthday or parents who are liquored and drugged up or whatever else, you expect their parental permission to be legitimate?

Call it paternalism, call it a nanny state, but you don't understand life if you think people make legitimate decisions for themselves.

You don't think people can make legitimate decisions for themselves, but you think it's legitimate for you to decide what other people will do? What, do you think people become better decision makers when they have less information and less at stake? Or is this some sort of elitist mentality where you think you're better and smarter than everyone else because you got a college degree and you've decided on a whim that society should function like a prison or the military?

Furthermore, these decisions are not made in vacuums but have very concrete effects on society. Does the dealer on the corner have a high school diploma? Does the mugger that pistol whips you and takes your wallet? Both very well could but let's not kid ourselves that high school drop-outs are statistically more likely to commit crimes.

Are you an idiot? If some neanderthal wants to be a drug dealing criminal when they grow up they've probably realized they don't need a high school degree to do that. This may sound cliched but correlation does not imply causation. It's much more likely that the criminal deadbeats weren't interested learning Algebra than that a lack of Algebra caused them to become criminals.

Yes, I know the laws on the books (education is compulsory in PA up to age 17) have proven ineffective, but that doesn't mean we should acquiesce to what is wrong. I believe in the importance of having something to do to stay out of trouble. Obviously, other things need to be done as well to encourage education but, forcing butts into classroom seats at least keeps some teens off the streets.

Yeah, let's force the troublemakers to stay in school and waste state resources while they learn nothing. Because the middle of the day is totally when muggings happen.

It's our social responsibility that people have basic educations. And that means not only that they are funded publicly but are compulsory.

High school isn't "basic education" you idiot. By the time someone is 16 they've already been in school for ten years. On what planet does "high" anything mean "basic"?

[Fake Boris]

Websters says you're wrong, Slowwhand:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/education

People without educations... applicants had comparable educations...

Wrong.

"People without education", but "applicants had comparable educations."

[Sava]

I've read that, on average, the US spends about $10k per student. My life would be a lot better if they had just put that money in a bank account every year (K-12) and let me have it when I turned 18.

Well... maybe when I turned 30. At 18, I would have bought a ridiculous car. Now, I'd buy a house.

People don't need to sit in school like it's a prison sentence. Not everyone needs to work for the world to function. Participation in the economy should be voluntary. By adulthood, every person should either have their own land or the means to acquire it.

[onodera]

Hell no. Why should the kids who want to get educated have to share a classroom with disruptive dullards who are only there because they're forced to?

Put them into different classrooms. Or different schools. Boarding schools.

[Lorizael]

I've read that, on average, the US spends about $10k per student. My life would be a lot better if they had just put that money in a bank account every year (K-12) and let me have it when I turned 18.

Well... maybe when I turned 30. At 18, I would have bought a ridiculous car. Now, I'd buy a house.

People don't need to sit in school like it's a prison sentence. Not everyone needs to work for the world to function. Participation in the economy should be voluntary. By adulthood, every person should either have their own land or the means to acquire it.

But without K-12, you'd have no idea how much interest had accrued on that $10k.

[molly bloom]

They should be forced to go once they've cleaned their rooms.

[Jon Miller]

Just to provide some input, on the front page of the Oregonian today was an article about Oregon highschool graduation rate.

It was apparently 66% in 2009 and 2010, but good news! It was 67% in 2011.

I don't see my district, but a neighboring one was near the bottom at 41%. For reference, the best district had 91%.

JM

[Wezil]

So if the would-be dropout is not academically inclined do we reduce the standards to ensure they pass or do we just warehouse them and give them a meaningless piece of paper when they have served their time?

Sparky had the best proposal of the thread - Paid trades training for anyone under 18 not enrolled in regular class.

[Jon Miller]

I think that things could be done to make education better. Graduation rates is the symptom, not the disease.

As I said, I think that local government, teacher unions, and maybe even state government (usually in the form of them being too weak to deal with the teacher unions) does a lot to harm public education in the US.

JM

[Wezil]

Fix all those items and you'll still have dropouts.

[Jon Miller]

It isn't good or right to say " Some people are not academically inclined, so it is OK that they don't graduate. Nothing wrong here"

Some dropouts will always happen. Some are retarded, some have mental issues, some have emotional issues... doesn't mean it is OK or that something shouldn't be done to fix it.

Even the least academically inclined person should not have problems with graduating highschool (having the level of education we desire for those who graduate highschool in the US).

Someone close to me graduated, and was abused as a child and had learning/reading difficulties.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Generally the 'some people' who are not academically inclined are exactly the same people who have been racially and/or economically subjugated. Society ****ed over the parents, and this is the reason why the children are 'not academically inclined'.

We need to do something about it, not just accept it.

It could possibly be trade skills in the last year or two of highschool. But there are a lot of things that can be done to support our schools.

JM

[Wezil]

It isn't good or right to say " Some people are not academically inclined, so it is OK that they don't graduate. Nothing wrong here"

"good" "right"? WTF?

How about "accurate"?

Some dropouts will always happen. Some are retarded, some have mental issues, some have emotional issues... doesn't mean it is OK or that something shouldn't be done to fix it.

What "fix" will ensure everyone graduates Jon? Including the mental issues people that apparently it is not good or right to talk about?

How about the just plain stupid? They exist.

Even the least academically inclined person should not have problems with graduating highschool (having the level of education we desire for those who graduate highschool in the US).

So you prefer solution "a" - drop the standards.

Someone close to me graduated, and was abused as a child and had learning/reading difficulties.

JM

Many people finish high school despite adversity.

What you seem to want to ignore is that not everyone is academically inclined. I know people that don't know **** about **** but are absolute masters at their trade. Why is that such a bad word for you? Why does it have to be a high school diploma and not a trade school diploma?

[Jon Miller]

For most people who are 'not academically inclined' at the level where they don't graduate highschool, the issue isn't one of intelligence or mental issues at all. It is rather those whose parents were economically and/or racially subjugated.

Highschool (in the US) is easy, and graduation barely requires the basics of reading/writing/arithmetic.

I have repeatedly said that if american's attitudes changed I would have no problem with a 2-track highschool with one track being trade oriented. I think many people shouldn't go to college, they are really just looking for the piece of paper (so their application is not thrown out) and it doesn't really profit them.

JM