Formal education (K-12) ought to be compulsory in the United States

On C3, as I think the RD 5 analysis requires it: 1. Time for global economy 101: global and national labor market competition is 100% topical to this debate. The biggest reason for specialization is the outsourcing of our jobs to other nations and the flooding of unskilled laborers into US borders, legal or otherwise. Hence, specialization has become a necessity outside of the control of our education system. I didn't provide sources because I figured this was common knowledge, but I've provided [1] & [2]below. No new arguments, just sources to appease Con. We need diplomas and college degrees not just because "they caught on," as Con asserts with no warrants (ironically enough). We need them because we need training in a job that can't be outsourced to another nation or given to an employee willing to work for half our pay. Thank you, capitalism. [1] http://emlab.berkeley.edu... [2] http://actrav.itcilo.org... 2. His assumptions about parents providing necessities is totally bunk. 30.5 million kids needed free/reduced lunch. Even though 30.5 million kids is still a minority of the school population (about 40% of the total enrolled), by Con's logic, they are a foregone loss—so screw them. If 40% of the US's school children don't have parents that can provide them with a couple of dollars for school lunch every day, how many parents out there can't deal with the task of properly educating their own children? "Parents provide food to their children; we can't say all but we can assume that it's natural to do so and the majority do. Food is a need. We can assume that most will provide education as well." No, no we can't. And now, for 3 voting issues. 1. Con cannot ensure the same level of education that Pro can. -Compulsory education ensures that the standards movement is successful. As I stated previously, the standards movement was specifically designed to operate within a compulsory education system. The amount of oversight that it takes to guarantee that education continues to improve can only be done if schools are literally working as one unit. Anything less than a compulsory system cannot achieve this goal. -Furthermore, I've proved that education in the US is a worthwhile and improving endeavor. Extend all the analysis I gave on standards, cognitive thinking skills, life skills, and social skills. At this point, you can cast your vote for Pro right now, as he has not met his burden, which was to prove that compulsory education was broken enough to eliminate. I'm winning the cost/benefit analysis in other places, too, but this is probably the most important place. -Con will not achieve as many diplomas as Pro will. Though Con attempts to side step this by saying that education enrollment won't actually change and that diplomas may or may not reduce in importance if we eliminate compulsory education, both claims fall flat on their faces. I've already proven why the need for diplomas and higher education isn't going anywhere. And of course education enrollment would change! If it doesn't, then Con can't achieve any of the benefits in his case as all are contingent upon less people going to school. He can't get around the fact that people need diplomas to be successful in the US, and that I provide many, many more of those to people. 2. Despite Con claims, the state has an obligation to help its citizens succeed economically and politically. The state's job is to maximize the wellbeing of its citizenry. In fact, that's its only job. Education falls under the blanket of this job more than enough to require the state to take an active role in its administration. In the debate, I used the brief example of US and state laws to demonstrate why it is that the government makes certain acts compulsorily right and wrong. Though word count prohibited me from elaborating, I can extend this now. Why can't we murder people? Why can't companies form monopolies? Why does the government "coerce" money from every citizen each year in the form of taxes? Simple answer: the government, via the will of the people in one way or another, has mandated that these activities are all important enough to mandate in order to ensure the success of the individual and the collective. Considering that wellbeing is inextricably tied to education, as established in RD 1 via my statistics on living wage and the US labor market, I'd say I've accomplished my goal, since only I can guarantee, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to get more citizens diplomas that reflect a well-balanced, skillful education. Furthermore, as I will discuss in my 3rd voting issue, the Con world causes a net loss in rights protection. 3. Any compulsory system will be the best way to combat institutional discrimination. This has also been a much discussed topic within the debate. Con seems to think that we live in a society that will continue to offer social support to people even without a compulsion by mandate to do so. How exactly is it that institutional discrimination was able to take such a strong hold in the first place? Discrimination is only corrected by declaring it to be universally wrong and then mandating that it be fixed. Otherwise, we have the same problems with oversight that we have with the standards movement. Any voluntary system leaves it up to individuals to decide who deserves services. Any compulsory system doesn't allow the individual to make that choice, because everyone deserves services. Take the flaws of a voluntary military system as an example (note: this is an example: no new analysis is made here). Right now, institutional discrimination is a *huge* problem in the US military. The incentive program offers college tuition and the like to anyone who will join the military's ranks, which means that poor and minority citizens are the only ones actually being appealed to. A conscription model, on the other hand, ensures that citizens from every socioeconomic and cultural division of society are represented within the armed forces. Furthermore, my opponent essentially contradicts himself on a number of occasions when he says that society will just naturally pick up the slack and offer kids with no resources or stable home an education without it being compulsory. He's also said time and time again that society expects a certain percentage of citizens to fail miserably, and that those are just acceptable losses within a capitalist system. Well, which is it? Is society going to follow its capitalist roots and tell them all to buzz off, or is society going to betray those roots and decide to help out underserved youth? In this case, you can't have your cake and eat it, too. With that, I sincerely thank Con for the debate, but encourage a vote in favor of Pro. (Woot! 89 characters remaining. I'm going to Disneyland!)