Is School Attendance Optional?

That was the headline of a New Yorker article just this morning.  Apparently school attendance was bad during the COVID pandemic (and, I assume, even after adjustment for school closings), but has stayed low ever since. 

Parents decide to home-school their kids for various reasons, foremost among them cultural and religious reasons; I am not seeking to complain about that.  But it appears that parents are sometimes complicit in absenteeism.

OK, let's face it: why is education compulsory, wherever it is so?  In Pennsylvania, for instance, you have to attend school up to 8th grade.  Why?  Well, an educated electorate is important for democracy, because so much public information is dependent on an understanding of summary information, not to mention text (bills before various legislatures, etc.)  This is why Trump, being just marginally educated, is a poor citizen, let alone a good choice for president.  Do parents send their children to school simply for the convenience, or because they believe in the value of it?

Many parents who have reservations about the value of community schooling (kids learn bad habits; kids learn to swear; the teachers are no good; learning math is irrelevant,  we have calculators; there's bullying; teachers are all atheists; it's just an unnecessary expense), still could have a strong pro-education conviction or bias, but not be comfortable with the school environment or culture.

Talking about culture, it's more in keeping with the American cultural environment to negotiate a reward for attending school, than to assess a penalty for not.  We could award some sort of medal for diligent school attendance, that most students could win, which employers would want to see; potential employees with that medal would be considered preferable to those without.  At the moment, playing hooky is frowned upon, but not really penalized. (I don't know, maybe it is?)

I, of course, am a strong believer in school.  I learned great stuff in school, and my mother, who was a school teacher, would ask me: did they teach you such-and-such?  Just the fact that she was interested made a difference in how seriously I took my classes.  It really pains me to see grade school kids who look cross-eyed when asked about something they should be familiar with.  And worse, adults who defend them, saying, oh at her age, I couldn't have told you much more than her!  Hee hee!  (Trumpies are probably delighted to hear of incidents that upset educated people.  Piss off the Dems!  I love it!)

This probably comes across as though I hate all conservatives.  That's not quite true—yet, but I'm getting there. 

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