Barakistan? Maybe this was addressed, but what to do about parents who wouldn't send their kids to school AT ALL if it weren't already free (for them) and the fact they got hauled into court and fined? A lot of parents fall into this category.
Absolutely they do. But
why do they fall into that category? I'd say it's because government subsidies like welfare and guaranteed schooling enable them to. Stop subsidizing failure and apathy, and I think you'll get a lot less of it.
But parents who still don't want their kids to go to school, or who don't mind if their kids don't want to go to school? They have every right to make that decision. It's their life. It's unjust to forcibly take that choice away from them, even if it's a stupid choice.
Do we want an illiterate underclass? Yeah? I know... "They're illiterate already"... Um, no they ain't, you want to see what REAL illiteracy looks like? Go to a country where school attendance ain't mandatory.
Look: we
do have an illiterate underclass. I've been to prison, and I've seen some of it. It's not very big, but it's there. Still, a person has the right to decide for himself whether he wants to be illiterate, and you don't have any right to say otherwise unless he's your kid. It is, after all--say it with me--his life.
