When talking to people about education I have heard something along these lines quite frequently…
“We have to force kids to go to school so they can be good citizens. If we do not educate everyone then civilization will fall apart.”
My first counter is to point out that we advanced pretty well in this country before education was compulsory.
Their retort is “Well the world has changed since then.”
Ask them how the world has changed since then. Also ask them what their definition of “good citizen” is. Then ask them how they know that public schooling (it’s not necessarily education) will necessarily make kids into “good citizens”.
Actually state schooling rather has the opposite effect, it indoctrinates people to be immoral collectivist maniacs. If civilization falls apart it will be because of state schooling.
Thinking about this further, you (TANSTAAFL) should ask them why they think kids won’t become “good citizens” unless they’re forced to endure over a decade of public schooling. It seems to me that their response will boil down to “We can’t trust people who haven’t gone through public schooling.” So the question then is, how come people were able to trust one another in the days before mandatory public schooling? Again, what has changed between now and then?
… Could it be that what’s changed is that there now exists a significantly large, self-perpetuating group of people who don’t want others to think for themselves?
This isn’t a rebuttal, but an observation:
Couched in the initial statement is this sentiment: “We have to force kids to go to school so they can act the way I want them to act. If we do not educate everyone then people will not do things the way I want them to.”
That’s the real concern, which is why their response is that things have changed. They have changed to where people’s preferences are not preferences this person approves of, therefore continued education is required.
Tell them it’s wrong to raise children to believe that socialism is beneficial when history has proven otherwise. Public Education is a product of socialism. Socialism is the governmental confiscation of money generated from the private sector to fund a communal goal.
This. It all comes down to trust. People have been taught for many years now that, were it not for the great god State and its wondrous indoctrination centers schools, kids will grow up to be criminals and revolutionaries. That’s what “act the way I want them to act” really means, I think. It’s not like such people are really worried about whether kids will grow up to prefer McDonald’s over Burger King or Coke over Pepsi. What matters to such people is that kids grow up to obey the way things are.