are you left,right or centre?

[Violet]

Sae,

Your case would be better without the plea to emotion that the buzzword, "slavery" causes. It certainly creates a strawman argument. Adrian is not supporting slavery but rather supporting parents rights to decide their own way to handle the stewardship of their child. Under his system I would worry that many children would get zero education which would widen the rift between the wealthy and the poor.

Actually, I wasn't aware I was trying to get any sort of emotional response from declaring slavery to be slavery :S I find it ridiculous that others sometimes inflate what slavery means. Slavery (the relevant definition) is simply the status of a person being owned by another person... it does not define anything else about the condition. Nonetheless: I don't have any respect for slavery under any form or 'guise'. But one has to remember that slavery only applies to 'people' (though I find 'personality' to be an interesting and somewhat difficult quality to define)... it is hardly something that we can call owning a fish on (though perhaps we can? It depends on how personality is defined and on what data we have to support that fish do or do not have a 'personality'.

Maybe he is ok with a lower to middle class that just learns specific trades? It could work, I had a high school teacher who was a firm believer that some children would be better off learning a practical skill. However, he wanted to incorporate that within the framework of mandatory basic education. His idea was to have half the day be classic education with the other half consisting of an apprenticship style. It would work for both the college bound AND the laborer because it would provide insight for the college bound into the life of workers and work experience for the laborer.

I hope he can provide some insights into his plan that would assuage my concerns. I see no path forward for a society that does not include mandatory education to at least a basic level.

Rhizo

I agree that a basic level of education is necessary for our progressive society (though I feel the apprenticeship/equivalent should be optional if it were implemented)... though I question just what the 'basic level' is considered to be, and how one decides another has crossed this 'basic level'. However... race, age, specie, style of dress, and other separators that fail to see if a person is yet at or beyond the 'base level' (and only that they have met an arbitrarily set goal): fail for the task they are supposed to accomplish (determining wether an individual is capable and ready to move to a new level), and should be ignored (whilst the relevant factors are considered).