ON FREE COMPULSORY EDUCATION

FREE COMPULSORY EDUCATION
© Chippy's Dad

I will start this post with several assertions with which I believe most people will agree. Education is a good that enables persons to live more successfully. We are all better off if everyone is well educated. Education is expensive. Education takes time. A person's education is never complete; there is always more to learn.

Assuming the foregoing assertions to be true, is compulsion acceptable to extend education to a maximum number of people? For reasons discussed below, compulsion is not okay. Is the use of tax dollars to provide an education at no cost or reduced cost to the student acceptable? No-cost or subsidized education is neither acceptable nor beneficial.

NO-COST EDUCATION

Imagine a caller uses the phone to initiate an offer for a free service, say a free home pest inspection. Such an inspection requires entry into the home by an unknown person. Unless a person is both concerned about pests and has reason to believe the caller represents a legitimate business, she would be likely to turn down the offer. The reason for turning down the offer involves consideration of the alternative outcomes from accepting the offer which outcomes could include:
• Pests are found and a reasonable offer is made to eliminate the pests.
• Pests are found and an unreasonably expensive offer for pest control is made.
• Pests are reported to exist when in fact they do not, and an offer is made to eliminate them.
• The inspector cases the house and returns to burglarize the house.
Considering the alternatives, the offer is rejected because the offer of a free service makes the service appear to have no real value and may indeed be of negative value.

A child very quickly learns that free services usually result in a waste of time. A free internet web site requires spending time listening to advertisements. Purchasing an item so advertised often results in receiving an item that is a waste of money. The example actually appears to have the same form as no-cost education: a "teacher" is informing, i.e. lecturing, the student of certain "facts" for free.

When education is offered for free, the offer suggests that education has no value. The people offering the education may have an agenda that is in the best interest of the people making the offer, not the student. An offer of education for free reduces the investment required of the student. Based on experience, the student rightly thinks that you get what you pay for. The student is likely to make the jump to the idea that pursuing any education is a waste of time.

COMPULSION

Imagine a child wants to go outside and play. His father forces him to wash the car first. A child quickly learns that whatever is forced upon him is undesirable. No force is required to make him play outside. Force is required to make him wash the car. From this lesson when compulsion is used to force a student to learn, the student is likely to make the jump to the idea that pursuing an education should be resisted.

THE TWO LAWS

A free tax-supported compulsory education violates the first of the two laws. HONOR THE LIFE AND PROPERTY OF OTHER PEOPLE. The law is violated because the requirement under pain of sanction to attend a school aggresses against the student by denying her right to freedom. It aggresses against the tax payer by forcefully taking property to support an educational establishment. The aggression is even more damaging if the taxpayer opposes the particular educational environment and doctrines subsidized by the tax.

ACHIEVING AN EDUCATION

The essential ingredient for a person to achieve an education is personal desire and commitment. No-cost compulsory education works on two levels to reduce the educational level of people by reducing both the desire and the commitment of the student. In any case, violation of the person through the use of force is never acceptable, even for a most noble cause. In order to improve the educational standards of a society, all education must be free of all compulsion and must reflect to the student the true cost. Only education achieved in spite of great obstacles will instill education with the meaning to the student that leads to greatness.