Mandatory schooling?

Debbie Meier explores the risks and responsibilities inherent in mandatory schooling:

I am arguing for a recognition that whenever one removes such freedoms one has a stronger obligation to “do no harm.” Without recognizing the “peculiarity” of the institution of schooling one misses something critical. Ruling over an involuntary “workforce”—in school or out—is not ideal. The side effects are important to recognize. Unlike school people, military men acknowledge the special qualities of a draft army versus a volunteer one. We civilians forget this too often when it comes to schooling.

We’re preparing kids to be grown-ups-- members of a democratic community, and a voluntary workforce—under circumstances that are neither democratic nor voluntary. It creates contradictions…

It’s perhaps why I favor erring on the side of graduating kids we aren’t sure meet our standards rather than not graduating them if we aren’t sure whether they meet our standards. The opposite policy is the one we actually employ. After at least 12 years of involuntary schooling we better be very sure before we deprive them of an entry ticket into the workforce—and even then at not very decent paying jobs. That means looking each kid in the eye and defending our decisions as in his or her best interests.

Meanwhile at the Faculty Room, the bloggers are discussing whether grades 11 and 12 should be made non-compulsory. 

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I think the most interesting component of her argument comes from the following paragraph, when she argues that “We should be sure we use their precious time, energy, and natural enthusiasm for learning from start to finish. We should be sure that the school day is, at least, an interesting and vital experience.”

Overall she seems to be making an argument that says that we should work to provide a quality education for all, but the way she makes it is so offensive.  She says, “From the very first day that I spent in a Chicago public school as a substitute teacher I recognized the special taste of fear—on the part of both many of the students and most of the adult staff. Including me. It was a fear not so different than prison employees probably feel, and which gets more and more blatant as youngsters get older. “They” outnumber “us”. Ergo the first priority: “control.” If we “let up” chaos will prevail. The atmosphere was noticeably more fearful in schools with students of color, a bit less so for poor white kids, and least of all in public schools with white middle class students.”

It seems to me that what she really faces is an inability to see beyond race and class issues and it concerns me that this is a wider sentiment among educators, especially among white, middle class educators.  Didn’t Obama’s recent speech on the state of race in the U.S. try to show us that we need to have more understanding and empathy for one another in an increasingly multicultural country?  If we create environments of learning and inquiry that are relevant to students’ lives, then perhaps education will be more valued by all members of our society.