Who was it that decided that kids HAVE to go to school?

       No, I mean it - seriously. Who decided that kids have an obligation to the state to go to school?

       I'm not saying that our children don't need an education. It is far too evident that a good high school education is a valuable tool in deciding what a person should do in his or her lifetime.

A good high school education should include teaching a person:

1. to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and do square roots of integers, & fractions. Be able to do equations.
2. to read a complete novel, in English, and be able to tell in 2,000 words or more what the novel is about, including basic symbolism, theme, important characters, historical value if any.
3. understand how the universe works in a general sense and, at least one in depth science such as cookbook physics, biology/anatomy, numbers theory/games theory, historical geology, cookbook astronomy, and cookbook chemistry.
4. at least 30 of the great classics in English Translation, including the following: 2 from France, 8 from England, 2 from Imperial through Post Soviet Russia, 2 Germany, 2 Greece, 2 Rome, 1 American Anti-Slavery, 1 Spain, 1 Argentina, American Science Fiction, Comprehensive English Language poetry.
5. basic American History, including the founding documents and what the founders thought they were doing, South Carolina history including the Revolution, both sides of the Civil War, reconstruction, and segregation of blacks, World Wars I, II, Cold War, & War on Terror, Capitalism and it's effect on Freedom, civil responsibility, and the ecology movement as an tool of politics.
6. Latin, plus an elective language.
7. Music, Plastic Art, and Drama appreciation
8. at least 3 hours a week of exercise
9. and remedial computer input/output, if necessary.

       But you may have noticed that, although this is what they say they teach, it's all on paper and actually rarely happens. But that's not our beef for today.

       Why does anybody have to prove to the state that they've learned anything? Have parents had their entire say revoked by the state? What if Thurlough and Mrs. Weed decide that Bubba doesn't need to finish high school? What if Bubba decides Bubba doesn't need to finish high school?

       Please! I'm not saying they shouldn't go to high school, I'm saying we've lost the freedom to be uneducated by the state.

       Forgive me, but I'm one of those people who thinks the current education system is an outright joke. The SC school system can no more teach the stuff just listed than fly a kite on a planet with no atmosphere, without cheating. If people haven't learned to like learning by the time they are 14 or 15, they're not going to learn in our current system. OUR SYSTEM IS BAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaad.

       Most people I know wouldn't subject their children to a public school in South Carolina, if they could afford it. And I know a LOT of black people.

       And let me tell you a little secret: It's not going to be any better when the Governor appoints somebody to be school superintendent, not that the current Supe is any good, either, y'understand. So it doesn't matter whether or not there's a new person or system at the top. The current IDEAS of education are totally screwed up, and have been since 1958. Totally.

       So why make students GO to school when they will reap little or no reward? Are we really such sadists?

       Nah. But we are ignorant. Instead of fixing the problem, we punish kids for staying away from the horrible, awful, boring, nasty, fearful experience that is our high school system, today.

       Now, the Senate is trying to pass a law that will basically take away a license if a person quits school.

       If an overwhelming majority of students were doing well in school in our state, it might make sense. But we're subjecting our kids to crap and saying, "you must stay there, you must - and while you're at it, learn something from these poorly taught teachers with idiotic education ideas, learned from colleges with meaningless tenured professors who haven't had a decent educational idea since the fifties."

       You are emplored, pick up a popular education text book and find out just how stupid their education ideas are. Then look at your children, honestly. Look at their situation. Look at their alternatives. Then tell yourselves that everything is ok, that we really are teaching our students well, that they really aught to go to school, and that they ought to be commanded by the state to attend.

       If you can't do that, then you need to hire a fire-breathing radical like me with REAL education ideas. Give him a bullwhip, and send him out to the money-seller education clique in our state and let him have at it.

       Of course, nobody is going to do that, because everybody is intimidated by the babuistic education clowns who run our state. Heck, as far as some politicians in our state are concerned, "ar skoos is gud."

       And so they pass laws to make the victims go anyway.