[PatrickHenry]

Ouch! Take this [voluntary education] to its logical conclusion, and you wouldn't want to live there!

Oh, it wasn't so bad. We didn't have state-financed compulsory education in the US until the 1840s. Massachusetts was the first, and they started it around the same time they dropped their state church (they were the last state to do so). If we returned to voluntary education, most bright people would see its value, and would provide it for their kids. As for those who choose not to go to school ... well, would things be any worse than what we've got today?

[f.Christian]

THIS JUST IN: "Educators reveal that, because of racial sensitivities, Ebonics could not be dropped out of the public school curriculum . . . so it had to be (( link )) - - - laughed out."

[forsnax5]

As for those who choose not to go to school ... well, would things be any worse than what we've got today?

I think that things would rapidly get worse.

I'm not crazy about state supported schools (with state supported curricula), but I think society has a legitimate interest in educating the populace, and I think you do too. You wouldn't be doing what you're doing if you didn't believe that education had societal implications.

And the country before 1840 was a different world, so I don't think it's reasonable to say that what worked then would work now...

[beavus]

Education is a commodity like any other. Its virtues are best nourished and exploited by a capitalist system. It, like medicine or cable TV, cannot be a moral right and shouldn't be a legal one either.

I agree with you. It should neither be state-controlled nor required.