That was a nice sarcastic non answer. Tell you what. Can you show me how harmful it is to society for the Amish to not go to school past 8th grade?
Marc
It’s a value judgment, Marc. Deal with it. I can handle it if you favor ignorance, so how 'bout you cut me some slack and allow me to favor education? Or better yet, leave it to our duly-elected representatives to set generally-applicable, non-discriminatory laws for everybody to follow, m’kay?
Nope. But I’ll tell them that their religion is wholly irrelevant to little Johnny’s continued attendance at school, as is required by a generally-applicable, non-discriminatory law. Johnny doesn’t have to pass Algebra, but he does have to attend.
Have to ask - what is the basic reading/writing/math competency of an Amish 8th grader?
Given the state of our public schools in many places, where 12th graders frequently can’t read past a 6th grade level, if the average Amish kid in 8th grade actually reads at that level then the Amish are doing better in 8 than many public schools are in 12.
It’s not just time served - it’s also what is accomplished in that time frame.
It is also my understanding that the Amish don’t typically go from school to just hanging out on the back porch all day - they go from school to learning a trade of some sort (farming, wood working, running a household without modern appliances, etc.) These people are not a burden on society, they do support themselves.
Also, last I heard about 25% of the Amish offspring leave for the wider world. Haven’t heard about those kids becoming deliquents, either - with basic literacy they should be able to earn a GED, or even enter a high school prior to going to college. There have been folks with Ph.D.'s and other forms of advanced degrees with Amish origins. It’s not like the Amish are kidnapping their “lost children” and keeping them captive.
This is a LOT different than a kid just dropping-out at 14 to steal cars, smoke dope, and raise other forms of mayhem.
Other groups - such as very conservative Hasidic groups - also school their own children. As long as certain requirements are met regarding literacy and other basic skills I, personally, don’t have a problem with this idea. As long as they wind up self-supporting adults with the basic tools to further their education, either on their own or more formally, I think there’s MORE harm in society FORCING EVERYONE to conform to just one ideal than in allow this sort of difference.
Not to focus on the Amish here (my point is on the general applicability of non-discriminatory laws, not bashing the brethren), but it’s not like they’ve got a great amount of occupational choice if all they’ve got is 8th grade under their belt.
But the difference is that the Hasidic groups (and I’m sure they’re not the only ones) school their own children in schools that meet the basic requirements of the state , as the Amish do up until 8th grade. The Amish aren’t simply against their children attending public high school-they object to their children getting a high school education, whether it be in a public high school, a high school set up by the Amish or homeschooling.
I don’t think anyone against this exemption for the Amish is against it for fear that the children will be unable to support themselves as adults. I think it’s more
1 discomfort with the idea of parents being permitted to limit the child’s options to that extent
2 the group based policy that John Bredin referred to
3 and for me, at least, a suspicion that if it had been the Unification Church objecting to high school , the decision would have gone the other way.
Doreen
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Don’t ever confuse me with someone who has a problem with value judgements. In fact I really hate it when someone says “That’s a value judgement” as if that’s suppose to invalidate what was said. So I’ve really got no problem “dealing” with it.
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I have neither the power to allow nor disallow you from favoring anything. I’d rather people stayed in school through high school as well.
And we’ve already got laws regarding schooling that are generally applicable and non discriminatory. But I do think there are many laws for which there should be exceptions made. Since I don’t see how society at large is being harmed because a few people choose to take their kids out of schools before they are 16 I don’t see why the Amish should change their ways.
Marc
Who says it has to be “society at large” that is harmed before the state is justified in stepping in? This country is not, nor should it be, Ayn Rand’s wet dream.
Society at large wouldn’t be harmed in any quantifiable way if Amish parents were allowed to murder their newborn infants in a sacrifice to Baal. Nevertheless, the state would be justified in enforcing any generally applicable, nondiscriminatory laws that prevented the parents from acting upon that particular religious belief. I would submit that the Wisonsin law requiring school attendance is primarily for the benefit of the minor children, and that there is no fundamental difference between enforcement of that law and enforcement of the murder laws.
Barking Spider points out that minors do not belong to the state, but neither do minors belong to their parents. Requiring education of all children until the age of 16 is reasonable, it is important, and it is not an attempt to screw religion. Ergo, the Supreme Court messed up Yoder big time.
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You haven’t really made a case that the individual minor is harmed either. You can believe it all you want but you have yet to demonstrat that these kids don’t grow into fully functional adults.
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Don’t knock Baal. He’s a more modern touchy feely god who only requires a blood sacrafice these days. He’s not our father’s Baal.
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I would submit that the Wisonsin law requiring school attendance is primarily for the benefit of the minor children, and that there is no fundamental difference between enforcement of that law and enforcement of the murder laws.
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You might be right. The typical arguements I hear for public schools is that it is good for society to have an educated population.
I guess we all got court decisions we disagree with. I don’t really see the harm to society or the minors who are pulled out of school. And even though the law is general and supposedly non discriminiatory I do believe exceptions should be made in some cases.
But ultimately I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I do understand where you’re coming from though.
Marc
I’ve never been entirely comfortable with Yoder because I think the Court was asking the wrong question. Does the state’s interest in education trump the individual’s free exercise right? No. Does the child’s interest in being educated trump the parent’s privacy interest? Yes.
Strictly speaking, a parent’s free exercise right is not infringed when the state forces the child to attend school. What is implicated is the parent’s right to raise their children as they see fit which is an aspect of the privacy right.
Therefore, I’d use a similar analysis to that used in medical treatment cases which turns on the child’s welfare. Since, in today’s society, having only an eighth-grade education will severely restrict a child’s options later in life, the state should be able to insist that a child continue his or her education in the same way that the state can insist that a child be given a life-saving blood transfusion.
In addition, the parent’s interest in barring all education past the eighth grade is pretty weak. While a parent may have a strong interest in preventing a child from being taught certain things, they have a much, much weaker interest in preventing the child from being taught anything. It’s true that the court’s aren’t supposed to get into the validity of religious belief. However, we’re having a policy discussion here, so we can. 
Exactly. Religious exceptions don’t make sense because you’d have to either decide which religions are “valid”, or give out exceptions for each and every frivolous claim.
So… what’s so magic about 16? Why not keep kids in school until 18? Or 21? Why not require college? Those of you saying “keep 'em in school for the kids sake” - justify 16 as opposed to any other age.
I only have anecdotal support for my answer, but overall, in the school system I worked in, I’d say the Amish kids probably left 8th grade with at least grade-level competencies. In many cases, I would guess that their abilities, vocabularies, etc, were higher than grade level.
Disclaimer: This is just MY experience, personally, working with Amish kids and non-Amish kids, in a small high school. Not ALL Amish kids fit the above description, but I’d bet a higher-than-average percentage did.
A lot of these kids were checking out 2 books per DAY from the library–and actually READING them. Not having tv, radio, etc, they focused a lot more energy on reading than a lot of my other students.
Exactly. I think that it’s easy for us (because a lot of us–me included–have bought into the idea that school=education=intelligence) to assume that because they leave school, they quit being educated. For the most part, for the men at least, they continue to learn, through apprenticeships or other work training.
The girls, unfortunately, don’t have the choices that the boys do, I feel. In my area, they tended to be homemakers or perhaps to work in one of the Amish restaurants or bulk stores.
Whew. I just keep coming back to this thread, don’t I? I’ll shut up now.
k