school attendence should be voluntary

Thank you, TeddyBear, for this debate. It's an interesting topic and I've never thought of advocating for voluntary school. In the interest of clarification 'm just goint to assume that you initial statement, "School attendance should be voluntary," was actually supposed to be "School attendance should not be voluntary." You are the Con and the resolution states that it should be voluntary. Or perhaps you meant should and you just forfeited the debate. This is cool, too. But of course I will present my argument in the interest of a lively and spirited debate. In the interest of clarity I would like to point out that the resolution states that "school attendance" should be voluntary. What this entails is that we are debating whether or not students should have to attend a specific sanctioned building that is considered a school, public or private. I'll show why this is significant in a moment. I will start with an articulated argument as to why school attendance being voluntary would be a good thing. In any discussion of school, what we are inherently valuing is societal welfare; indeed, the purpose of school, much like all other government-operated functions, is to promote the general welfare of society as a whole. Therefore, if I can demonstrate that school being voluntary would promote the welfare of society, then you should vote pro. My first contention is that school being voluntary would not necessarily lead to drastically lower attendance. In fact, school IS voluntary for students when they reach the age of 16. However, school dropout rates are very low; a recent study of public high schools in the Northeast showed that no more than a fraction of 1% of all students actually drop out of high school without returning shortly after. Students are still motivated to pursue their education even when they are not forced to by the government. Furthermore, students drop out of school at 16 often to pursue jobs. In many situations it is to provide a supplementary income for the student's family; perhaps she is from a single-family home, or maybe her parents are sick and unable to work. If this student was unable to drop out of school and pursue work, perhaps her family would fall apport and she would be placed into custody of the government. As such, societal welfare would not be upheld. Following this train of thought, students may wish to drop out of school temporarily to pursue more beneficial prospects. Young actors, for instance, might choose to drop out of school at 12 to pursue a career, while supplementing their lack of formal schooling with tutoring and home-schooling. Finally, we are debating school attendance, like at a public or private school. What my opponenent fails to acknowledge is that home-schooling and private tutoring can be just as effective, if not more effective, than going to the classroom. My making school attendance mandatory, we make home-schooling and private tutoring impossible, even if it might be a better system of education. I will now proceed to rebut the arguments of my opponent. For the sake of clarity I'll just list out his arguments in rough numerical order. 1. Teddy begins his argument by stating that "kids who don't go to school will do crimes." This is an erroneous assumption, one with no evidence and no base. In fact, one could argue that crime might increase if students who would otherwise have brough in an income for their family instead had to resort to petty robbery to supplement income. 2. My opponent's second argument is that taxes would increase because "the government would have to pay for the activities." First of all, what "activities" is he referring to? This statement, like the rest of his case, is ambiguous and ill-defined. Furthermore, I would argue that the contrary is true: by making school attendance mandatory, those students who had been working or were home-schooled would instead have to attend public schools, schools which the government would have to pay for. Not only that, but those families that would collapse without the extra income of working teenagers would then have to be supported by the government through social welfare programs. 3. My opponent also makes the argument that without education, people would find it hard to find good jobs and would have to resort to crime to survive. I do not disagree with this, but I think that students would not dropout in droves if school attendance were made voluntary. I'll cite the evidence I gave earlier that only a fraction of students over 16 actually do drop out. Also, if we made school attendance mandatory then home-schooling wouldn't be an option, arguably giving many children a poorer education, leading, as my opponent stipulates, to an increase in crime. 4. Teddy states that without schooling, kids would not know the "purpose in their lives," which would lead to suicide. This is a ridiculous and baseless assumption. It is not the job of schools to give kids "purpose in their lives," anyway. 5. His fifth argument is that there would somehow become a class-structure if school were voluntary. This assumption has no evidence and there is no logical connection. I hope to have an interesting discussion. Your turn, Teddy =D