Why have compulsory schooling for kids, but not for adults?

Great Debates
1

(Split off from Political Compass #25: #25 Schools shouldn’t make attendance compulsory. What follows are two of my posts in that thread, with some minor edits and with the key points highlighted. If anything here is unclear out of context, please refer to the other thread.)

I have not seen a reason for forcing children into school that only applies to children, yet no one would seriously suggest holding all adults to the same academic standard that children in school are required to meet - why not, if it’s so important for everyone to have that level of education?

We basically give up on troubled and unwilling students, as soon as they turn 18; and as for those adults who make it into the country without the equivalent of a diploma, we don’t even attempt to have them learn the same subjects that public school children are graded on.

That suggests to me that compulsory schooling has less to do with giving everyone an education of a minimum standard, and more to do with keeping kids out of sight.

As I said, I can see the merit in requiring everyone to have a certain level of education… but I must strongly agree with the political compass statement as it’s given, because schools (as I know them) are only compulsory for children and teenagers, and therefore serve quite a different purpose.

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I’m simply wondering where the logic is in insisting on a minimum standard of education for children, if you don’t extend it to anyone else. I am far more concerned with making sure voters and public servants are educated, and they tend not to be children.

Why does it matter whether little Johnny can write a research paper, recite the capitals of African countries, explain the symbolism of Watership Down, or balance a chemical equation, when his parents–the people who actually wield political and economic power–are not held to any remotely similar standard? It’s like a coach asking a runner to train every day, starting 12 years before a big race… but then feeding him donuts and sitting him in front of the TV for the last six weeks before the event, just when being in shape matters the most.

The fact that minors generally don’t have the same freedom of choice as adults is a nice vague thing to point out in order to justify even more separate treatment of minors and adults, but modern societies have no problem abridging adults’ freedom of choice when the goal is important enough. You don’t have the freedom to choose not to pay taxes, for example, because taxes are needed to fund essential services. Is education only important enough to justify abridging some people’s freedom, but not others?

2

Because someone needs to actually work full time so taxes get paid so that full time school is available to the ones who can’t work.

3

That about sums it up.

Hey, I’d love it if I could spend my whole life with my nose buried in books studying everything under the sun, but unfortunately, I don’t happen to live in some utopia where food is plentiful and housing is free.

The gist is - you learn young, when your brain is mushy and more able to handle new ideas. By the time you mature, you’re stuffed full of knowledge like a duck at a fancy dinner, and you are a person capable of making educated decisions.

No one says that education HAS to end there, but for most people, they must face the realities of putting food on the table and a roof over their head. Many spend time educating themselves via news, books, and now, the Internet (which is what we are all doing right here right now). Some go to adult night college.

But the goal remains: Teach what NEEDS to be taught when young, let them live their lives when they are mature.

4

First, let me be clear that I’m not proposing for education to be mandatory for adults. (I don’t think it should be mandatory for anyone.) What I’m trying to do is explore the contradictions between the statement “everyone in our society should have a minimum level of education”, which is used to justify compulsory education, and “schooling should only be mandatory until age X”.

Now, if a minimum level of education were really required for everyone instead of just minors, what would stop people from working full time once they meet that standard? Nothing. Some would meet it at age 16, some at 19, some perhaps at 25.

The difference between that and our current system would be that it actually requires people to have a certain level of education before they move on to the work force, instead of simply putting them in a room with teachers and books for 12 years, hoping they’ll come out with an education.

If the goal of compulsory schooling is actually to make sure everyone has a certain level of education, I don’t see how it could be worse to actually apply it to everyone.

On the other hand, if you think the goal of compulsory schooling is something else, I’d love to hear it. I suggested that one of its purposes is simply to keep kids out of sight, and so far no one has disagreed with that (in either thread).

I submit that most children who are forced to go to school don’t view it as a wonderful opportunity to bury their nose in books.

Consider a person who comes into the country without an education, or a person who fails grade after grade in school until he’s finally allowed to leave without a diploma, or a person who promptly forgets 90% of what he was required to learn in school within a year of graduating. How are they any more stuffed full of knowledge, or capable of making educated decisions, than someone who simply drops out of school?

5

There are quite a few ideas behind compulsory education, and on review, they really don’t look very pretty:

  • our economy requires workers with specific knowledge levels, so teach the kiddies to be good workers.
  • educating children is too complex a task to be left to parents, so take education out of the homes and put it in the schools where the “experts” can handle it.
  • non-comformists and the like make us uncomfortable, so let’s train the little ones to be consuming conformists.

Sheesh. I wonder if the other English teachers are as cynical as I am. Please excuse the following weak rant . . .

As an teacher, I see some pretty big disadvantages to compulsory education. What happens when every kid goes to school is that we have a fair number of parents who view us as nothing more than free babysitters and a whole lot of kids who really don’t want to be there for anything other than socializing.

School becomes an artificial world with no real consequences for the choices students, parents, teachers, or administrators make. Beat up on your neighbor? If you were an adult, you’d go to jail. In school, you get a three day suspension - a vacation from school, if you will. Refuse to do your school work or take your standardized tests seriously? You’ll get passed from grade to grade until finally in high school, flunking a subject means you don’t get to graduate.

I would like to see schools and teachers with the option of saying “Go home. Come back next semester and try again. Flunk one more time, and you don’t come back at all.” Then, the parents would get to deal with the consequences of not requiring that their kids take school seriously. They’d have to find something to do with Junior (though in all liklihood, they’d just let him play video games until the semester was over).

I’d like to see students and family given some power over hiring and retaining teachers and administration. Get rid of the dead wood and keep the ones who are effective. If students know that their success in school depends on how much they learn how quickly, they’ll be far less tolerant of the do-nothing, always-party teachers out there.

I’d like to see some form of skills/knowledge testing available so that students who have mastered a subject get credit for it and don’t have to sit in classes they have no need for. I’d like to see grade level defined - not by age - but by subjects mastered, rather like college where you’re a sophmore when you have 24 credits to your name. That way, instead of chalking it up to time passed, students are encouraged to get off their butts and get tasks done.

Okay, time to go to bed.

6

At the time when compulsory schooling was instituted, I think it had more to do with keeping kids from being child-brides or sweatshop workers. If schooling hadn’t been made mandatory, plenty of parents would just as soon have sent Junior to toil away in a coal mine instead.

7

Mr2001, many thanks for taking this route. I hope I didn’t seem to sniffy or dismissive in requesting that you did, I’m just keen that those Political Compass threads focus solely on the porpositions themselves in order to end up with a coherent whole.

As I replied to you in that thread,

There are all kinds of ways in which children’s freedoms are abridged where adults’ aren’t. The question of education is, to me, just another manifestation of the idea that children do not yet know what is best for them, leaving adults to make those decisions for them. Of course it is true that many adults don’t either (indeed that may be said to be the cause of many of society’s ills). I do happen to advocate help and intervention, by the state if the market provides none, in the case of adults who clearly make decisions which ruin their lives on a regular basis, eg. by mandating some kind of education as a condition of welfare payments.