Do you support compulsory elementary education? Please explain your answer.

[Expatriate]

I did a search for "compulsory education" and it appears not to have a thread dedicated to it yet, so I wanted to do a poll to see your opinions.
The United Nations says "free" compulsory education at the primary level is a basic human right. Do you agree with this or think that we should follow their guidelines? Or do you believe that forcing children to learn things they may not want to learn or using tax dollars to pay for socialized education is wrong?

Please elaborate on your reasoning below if you don't think the answer you picked adequately explains your position.

[WRellim]

I assume you mean "compulsory Schooling."

If so, then I would contend that it is not merely unnecessary, but extremely harmful.


"Education" is something that occurs naturally, and virtually all small children are GENIUSES at being autodidacts -- teaching themselves to walk, talk, understand abstract concepts, manipulate objects, etc. (things our combined "geniuses" cannot manage with computers yet in anything but a rudimentary form of mimicry).

But alas, all of that only functions for a limited time -- and THAT is cut even shorter once they are "compulsed"* into attending a formal "School" which normally manages to destroy their ability to learn within only a few years, and their ability to self-teach in even less time (typically a few weeks or months -- occasionally, but rarely it takes decades to destroy).


*Yes I know the "proper" word here is "compelled" but I prefer the neologism of "compulsed" because it more closely resembles "repulsed" and I find all forms of compulsion to be repulsive.

[Pennsylvania]

I do not believe it is a basic human right. Education, in my opinion is less important than such things as clean air, water, food, or even healthcare, as all of these deal with keeping the human being alive. If anything, these basic necessities would qualify as rights over education. Yet even in our society, we do not treat these necessities as rights, and rightly so.

Part of America's problem is the misunderstanding of rights, believing that they are meant to serve humanity, rather than provide an agreed-upon form of social conduct in which individuals simply do not interfere with the lives of other individuals.

[sratiug]

Number 4 because someone must decide what is taught in the schools and that someone won't be the taxpayer.

[heavenlyboy34]

Not a right at all. It's a responsibility of the parents, not the state.

[Natalie]

If we're going to waste tax dollars anywhere, it should be on education. But before public school, even the poorest families could afford to send their kids to school. So I don't think public schooling is necessary.

[Expatriate]

I assume you mean "compulsory Schooling."

If so, then I would contend that it is not merely unnecessary, but extremely harmful.


"Education" is something that occurs naturally, and virtually all small children are GENIUSES at being autodidacts -- teaching themselves to walk, talk, understand abstract concepts, manipulate objects, etc. (things our combined "geniuses" cannot manage with computers yet in anything but a rudimentary form of mimicry).

But alas, all of that only functions for a limited time -- and THAT is cut even shorter once they are "compulsed"* into attending a formal "School" which normally manages to destroy their ability to learn within only a few years, and their ability to self-teach in even less time (typically a few weeks or months -- occasionally, but rarely it takes decades to destroy).


*Yes I know the "proper" word here is "compelled" but I prefer the neologism of "compulsed" because it more closely resembles "repulsed" and I find all forms of compulsion to be repulsive.

I agree with you. I also think education occurs naturally, and using compulsory education not only stunts children's mental development, but wastes tax money while allowing government brainwashing and conditioning to take place. I too find all forms of compulsion repulsive, since I'm an individualist.

I used the term "compulsory education" in the poll because that is the encyclopedic terminology for forced schooling, not because I think education wouldn't occur without it.

I'm trying to develop a concise and clear argument against compulsory education. The problem is that proponents of the current system say "Without free and compulsory schooling, the rich kids would get the best education and the poor kids would be stuck in the ghetto and grow up to be criminals" I'd like to find a way to cut through all that emotional B.S. and point out how socialized schooling actually harms development, while the rich kids go to high-quality private schools anyways. There's got to be a way to do that in less space than Murray Rothbard's lengthy piece on Mises.org.

[Expatriate]

Well I'm glad to see this poll is going in the direction I hoped! 7-0 for individualism so far. I had been seeing posts lately that were getting me a little worried.

If we're going to waste tax dollars anywhere, it should be on education. But before public school, even the poorest families could afford to send their kids to school. So I don't think public schooling is necessary.

Good point. Parents could afford to pay for school if so much money wasn't being taken from them already to pay for mediocre public schools. Of course the collectivist argument is always that the rich folk will pay for the best schools and get an unfair advantage, but hey, they've earned it, right? The same flawed logic could be used to confiscate inheritances for the "common good" since they also provide an "unfair advantage".

[Mini-Me]

When it comes to education, my priorities are (in order):

• Immediately eliminate compulsory schooling, truancy laws, restrictions that make homeschooling difficult, etc. Personal liberty and individual choice is key.
• Get the federal government completely out of public schools as soon as possible. They'd certainly perform a whole lot better if state and local school boards freely competed and decided the curriculum without being tied down by the Department of Education...and the whole "blackmailing taxpayers/states for their education money back" trick has to stop, too.
• I also support an eventual transition from public schools to private schools in my own state/locality, as well. Because it has nothing to do with protecting people's rights and its compulsory funding violates them, socialized/public schooling is not a legitimate function of government, and it is unjust to tax people for such a purpose (especially when it's done through property taxes, the worst of all). That said, eliminating public schools entirely is pretty much at the tail end of my minarchist libertarian agenda. Gutting the federal government is an absolute necessity for liberty to thrive, and after that, reducing the aggression of state and local government is mostly just icing on the cake...although eliminating property taxes in particular is a pretty crucial step.

[torchbearer]

No to forced anything by the government. No to the feds taxing us for things they have no authority doing.
Yes to a local community putting their own schools together if that is what they want.
But no to forcing parents to send their kids to that school.