Poor schoolchildren should clean up after rich schoolchildren or go hungry

Preface: I had to think for a while before taking this one up, my socialist style economic views doing battle against my Authoritarian right wing social values. Rebuttals:"The following conversation could soon take place in publicly-funded school playgrounds in Britain if they adopt the American system of humiliating kids who are entitled to free school meals by forcing them to clean up after the rich kids." The premise of this statement is false, American public schools do not participate in any such program, and while this does not specifically pertain the debate at hand the statement is false nevertheless. "... Long winded made up story" By inventing incredibly false and abusive arguments you are attempting to falsely demonize based solely on your imagination and turn the audience against my position by associating unsubstantiated cruelness with it. " Now I understand there may well be an economic case for the Republican system of getting poor kids to clean the schools and using the money saved on janitors to give tax cuts to the rich, but this system marginalizes kids from poorer backgrounds, sapping their self-confidence, and it also means they waste valuable time that could be better spent doing homework or playing sport." Another blatant straw man argument, nowhere in the premise of this argument is giving tax breaks to the rich included. I see no reason to believe that cleaning a cafeteria would sap the self confidence of those from lower economic backgrounds. In the armed forces enlisted men often find themselves cleaning up after their officers, however this does not damage the self confidence of the enlisted man, instead it brings him and his fellow soldiers closer together. Cleaning a cafeteria would take a negligible amount of time, especially with the availability of dozens of students. At most it would take around half an hour to clean the lunch room, leaving ample time for homework and after school activities. "Call me a socialist, I don't mind, but I believe that all children in publicly-funded schools should be treated equally and with dignity and respect, regardless of their parents' financial status, and it is certainly wrong to punish poor kids for being underprivileged by making them clean up after the rich kids." The problem with your argument is that they are not equal, based on the fact that they are economically less well off they are less likely to graduate from college and get a white collar job. [1] Due to this fact those who do manage to get jobs will not be on an equal playing field as those wealthy students who have gone on and graduated from an Ivy league university. By having them learn work ethics at a young age and teaching them applicable labor skills they are more likely to get jobs that they can use to ensure that their children are better off, thus breaking the poverty cycle. Argument: Because they come from lower class households these children's parents most likely contribute less to the nation economically and with taxes than the parents of richer children. Everyone has a place in society, those better off tend to occupy higher positions in society such as CEOs and Managers. However everyone must contribute if the society is to run smoothly and in order to prepare lower class children for their place in society they should be taught useful skills for that position. For example, the child of some Rothschild banker will never need to know how to mop a floor, and their time would be better utilized by learning high finance, on the flip side the son of an inner city mother with 9 children and no husband is much less likely to have need of a degree from Harvard. Instead he should be taught practical skills that he can use to ensure that his children have a better chance than he did. In addition money could be saved by cutting back on custodial staff, this money could be used for vocational programs that teach practical skills to those destined for blue collar careers. In addition funds saved from these cuts could be re-directed to social programs to help lower class youth. In effect these kids would be working to better their neighborhoods and lives. [1]http://www.coveringpoverty.org...