One other thing –
(– which I really should have mentioned before, but it didn’t quite click for me until a friend raised the issue –)
– look. Universal schooling serves a number of purposes, some of which conflict with each other, some of which are best served using different methodologies. One of these purposes is social acculturation, which is the thing that certain sorts of people like to refer to as “indoctrination.”
Or, in other words: these are the norms, rules, and values of mainstream society within the civilization that is running the school system.
Up to a point, I think that this is an important and valuable function, and furthermore I think that mandatory universal schooling is actually a pretty good way to achieve that function. I’ll go so far as to say that schooling for this specific purpose (as opposed to schooling for the development of academic skills, etc.) should not be evadeable through private schooling or homeschooling or what-have-you. Think of it, if you like, as the information-distribution mechanism of @slatestarscratchpad‘s Archipelago. A lot of kids are raised in cultures that are super bad for them, one way or another, and a lot of people are inclined to try and hold their cultures together through a regime of parochial ignorance; it’s actually very important to ensure that everyone gets to hear “whatever life looks like for you, you can always run away to Normieland and participate in Normie Culture, which is X and Y and Z.” Classes aren’t necessarily the best imaginable way to do this, but they’re a lot better than e.g. rumspringa.
[Ideally there would be cultural education for a variety of available social alternatives, but this is and-a-pony-while-we’re-at-it thinking.]
Note that I say this as someone who expects to be raising at least one child, someday, with some fairly out-of-the-mainstream ideas.
BUT
There is a big, big, big difference between “understanding a suite of values” and “professing a suite of values.”
Demanding that a student be able to sandbox-model normie culture is totally reasonable.
But if a mandatory universal school system is making its students sign off on “normie culture [or any other culture] is Right and Good” in order to pass their classes, that is monstrous, it is an affront both to my ethics and to basic American constitutional ethics, and I strongly support efforts to change that particular bit of educational policy.
I actually proposed an “interview” process that’s meant to accomplish this.
It was designed specifically for minimum impact against anything other than serious isolation, and I agree that actual isolation isn’t good.
And yet…
What civilization is this, dripping with the slimy issue of its sins? Why do we look to the East, to Poland, Russia, Israel?
…we don’t?
I’m sorry, I can’t parse this at all.