[Aquinasfan]

The simple fact of the matter is that the government - especially in this more technical age - has a compelling interest in ensuring that children are adequately educated so that they have options other than welfare or slinging burgers at McDonalds.

Compulsory schooling isn't about learning. It never has been.

[jude24]

Compulsory schooling isn't about learning. It never has been.

Sure it was. In the "Old Deluder Satan Law," officially called the Massachusetts Education Law of 1647 established a compulsory education system (every town with 50 families had to hire a teacher; those few towns wit 100 families had to establish a "grammar school" to prepare students to go to Harvard.)

To be sure, the American educational system was influenced by the Prussians - just as our military was. (Clauswitz's On War redefined our military in the 19th century.) Even so, Prussian excesses do not discredit complusary education any more than the Eisenhower Interstate System is discredited by Hitler's autobahn.