Or do states just do so?
(I am anticipating that a red state just shuts down their public school system one day)
Surely it is a legal requirement to send your children to school, just as it is in the EU. That means that schools have to be available.
There is such a requirement, but AFAIK it exists at the state level, not the federal level.
I’m sure this seems bizarre to Europeans, mostly because it is bizarre, but our federal system is an artifact of history not of common sense.
I also think that schooling is written into most states’ constitutions, but state constitutions can be amended far more easily than the federal one. Even so, I wish that the OP had left the idiotic political commentary out of a reasonable factual question.
Arkansas did in 1958, stayed closed for a year.
In general, the system of U.S. government places a lot of power in the hands of the states. The federal government from a legal standpoint interprets the constitutionality of federal and state laws, and enforces laws that necessarily span state lines. For example, there is no federal law against murder, but there is a federal law against a murder that involves actions taking place across state lines (IANAL, this is a conceptual description; if you want technical details I’m not the right guy). There is no federal law that says what education states have to provide or require.
Here is a bit of information about the U.S. Department of Education. The Department is much more involved with funding for post-secondary education, but does take some interest in elementary and secondary education.
There are many areas where the federal government provides funding to the states and imposes conditions on that funding. The most well-known is interstate highway funding. Back in the 1970s the federal government wanted to do something visible about the “gas crisis” and felt that limiting highway speeds to 55 MPH would save gas. But they couldn’t pass a national law because speed limits are the jurisdiction of the states. So they just decided to deny certain funding to states that declined to set a 55 MPH speed limit on federally funded highways. And of course, all the states wanted the funding so they all lowered their speed limits.
There are federal programs that affect state-level education, such as No Child Left Behind. However, I am not knowledgeable about how this works, and what authority is exercised by the federal government over the states for that law. It may be similar, where the federal government will fund the states but requires certain things, like student testing, to qualify.
Virginia’s Prince Edward County famously shut down their public schools rather than integrate them.
Bingo. The US Department of Education has relatively little power to actually force states to adopt or change educational policies. They do use (and use quite well) a “carrot” method where they go and tell schools, “We’ll give you ten million dollars if you require that teachers teach X in the classroom. Don’t want to? Then I guess someone else will get the money! Have a nice day!”. A state can theoretically refuse, but they generally don’t because they are desperate for the money.
Except many European countries are Federal as well, the concept wouldn’t be that bizarre.
If education is the state’s responsibility. How are the Feds enforcing No Child Left Behind?
Public law 94-142 is a federal law (now called IDEA). It’s the education of all handicapped children, and it uses the language “least restrictive environment,” but does not use the word “mainstream.” So, I suppose if some red state did shut down the public schools, they would still be obligated to educate disabled children, who must be provided for from age 3 until 21, or they earn a high school diploma. So schools for the Deaf and blind would remain open, and somehow, children with other disabilities would have to be provided for. I can see parents in the states without schools doing everything they could to have their children somehow diagnosed with something in order to qualify for an education at the state’s expense.
I don’t know what those states would do-- keep just enough facilities open to accommodate disabled children, or pay to support them in private schools.
FWIW, in areas that have charter schools, those schools do have special education. I know two parents, one of a MMR, and one of an autistic child, who is fairly high-functioning in regard to language, but low in social skills, in charter schools. They say that because they classes are smaller, their children get to spend more time in regular classrooms-- the MMR boy is in a regular classroom part-time, and resource part-time, and the autistic boy in in a regular classroom full-time with an aide.
If public schools as we know them go away, something else will take their place.
State schools get some federal funding.
I thought it was until the age of 16 ( ? ) when they can legally drop out in most states?
For the most part, kids have to start school in the first grade, 5-7 years old more or less or be in approved home schooling or be off the grid & no one knows about them.
Then at 16 ( ? ) it becomes optional as far as the law is concerned.
General world wide opinion is that children need to be & should be educated. Details are the difference.
I looked it up. As I speculated in post #5, the federal government enforces it by making it a condition of federal funding.
From Wiki: The IDEA is “spending clause” legislation, meaning that it only applies to those States and their local educational agencies that accept federal funding under the IDEA. While States declining such funding are not subject to the IDEA, all States have accepted funding under this statute and are subject to it.
If a State truly wanted to shut everything down, they could–including education for the disabled.
Contrast that, however, with the current madness of states willfully turning down massive Federal Medicaid subsidies rather than expand their own state-level Medicaid programs. Ramp up the political ideology high enough, and states will turn down big money to suit their insanity.
In an earlier era, rich dude Andrew Carnegie (a mega-bazillionaire in today’s money terms) offered to pay to build libraries in any cities that wanted them. But with a string attached: The cities had to promise that, once the libraries are operational, the cities would keep them running and maintain them. Many cities agreed, and many Carnegie Libraries were built. Some are still operational to this day. Many other cities turned down the offer.
Generally (at least in every state I’ve lived, or known someone who has had children in school) the requirement for a child not to be considered truant is to be enrolled in school from age 7-16. A 16-yr-old who does not have a high school diploma must formally drop out in order not to be considered truant. Almost every state provides education beginning with half days for five-yr-olds, and full days for six-year-olds, but parents are not required to enroll them.
Recently kindergarten start ages have changed as kindergarten has become more challenging, and school year start dates have been pushed back. When I was in school we started on Sept. 2, and anyone who was 5 by Oct. 2 could start kindergarten. Now schools start around the first of second week of August, and children need to be 5 by June to start kindergarten the following August.
Private kindergartens are popping up around this state that hire licensed teachers who are fully qualified to work in the public schools. The schools start in August, or even earlier, and sometimes run past the end of the public school year, and have very small classes. They’re expensive, and take kids who may not turn five until Sept. 1. Children who satisfactorily complete the programs are usually allowed to enter the first grade in public school the following year. Parents who don’t want their children to be what feels like “a year behind” to them, because the child has a birthday in late June or July, are flocking to these schools, along with every parent who is sure their child is gifted and needs a “special” program. A lot of the schools promise the kid will be reading by the end of the year, and the parents don’t realize how reading-focused public school kindergarten is now, so that lots of children complete public school kindergarten knowing how to read (it isn’t a requirement, though).
I’m started writing a polite response, but I dumped it. Our system is bizarre to everyone. Especially to European countries. Maybe not Luxembourg, with its 17 words for school, but certainly the others.
It is. From a northern perspective, the two things that strike me as the most bizarre are the ever-expanding commerce clause, and the tortuously complicated court system. 
I remember learning of the the Little Rock Nine, but had forgotten or never learned about the year that followed in that city (not the entire state).
Not a proud moment.
In what way? In the sense that “anything different” is weird? Well yes, I’m sure to a Brit our system is weird. But what meaningful point are you making? A Brit would probably also find the French system, with its civil code legal system, its strong independent executive that can be at odds with the legislature and etc is markedly different. The German system has strong Federalism and some classes of laws cannot even be passed at the Federal level without the upper house (made up of representatives of the German states, typically the actual executive of those states and/or their appointments, and they have to vote in state blocs) say so, whereas in the American system the States get no direct say over Federal legislation.
Then there are the Swiss Cantons, the whole devolved governments in Britain etc. I’m not sure that you’re making much sense. What are you saying, that all the European countries have the same type of government and find ours weird because it isn’t European? That is nonsense–there is as much variety in governmental forms as you’d want to find in Europe.