Some Perspective on Compulsory Education
In order for a sixteen-year-old to propel approximately 1 ton of machinery down the highway at 60-plus miles per hour (often with siblings and friends as passengers), he or she need only spend about 30 hours in combined classroom and hands-on instruction.
In order for anyone of reasonable age to legally and readily acquire gasoline, a most spectacularly explosive liquid capable of incinerating people, buildings, or cars, one need absolutely no training, certification, or diploma—just a 5-gallon can and the means to purchase it.
In order for any post-pubescent couple to conceive, deliver, and rear the most fragile, vulnerable, and valuable thing there is on the planet, an infant child, not one single mandatory hour of education or training is required of them.
Yet, most states have compulsory education laws requiring parents to send their children ages six to sixteen to a facility staffed by relatively unknown individuals for more than a decade of their lives so they can learn to read, write, and do arithmetic.
