> Dropouts are rare full stop, ...
From a quick search, the State of Michigan has roughly an 8% dropout rate. Whatever your criteria for the term "rare", that is a huge number of kids.
If you are trying to run a really healthy society (vs. a Social Darwinism dystopia), then putting all the kids who don't do well in academic classroom settings on a "things like mental disabilities" - "effectively vegetables" spectrum seems extremely counterproductive.
Hey guys, I just wanted to butt in to clarify that I'm not mentally disabled or dyslexic. I'm basically neurotypical... well... more or less.
I dropped out simply because I found school insufferably boring and an almost complete waste of time. Some of my earliest memories are of myself thinking "oh man, it's still just Wednesday -- two more days to go until the weekend?!" (Fast forward to today, and I find myself looking forward to Monday!)
Just about everything else I found myself doing with my time -- including actual hard labor -- felt more rewarding and productive. (At least I was making money that I could use to buy 3dfx cards and RAM chips.) In truth, past phonics, don't think that I even learned anything in school; I was always ahead of the class just by reading books at home and at the library.
My parents shed many tears, but they came to terms with my dropping out, because I had exhibited depressive symptoms from about the age of 9 or 10, and those symptoms entirely vanished when I didn't have to go to school.
I'm sure that there are many others like me. Public school often tries to shove round pegs into square holes. There are better ways to learn, of that I'm certain.
And this is sort of the case that I was gesturing towards. A good school system is not one that just pounds on you to sit in class until you can regurgitate some fact. Its one that lets students figure out what they're good at before they have to be on their own.
Montessori, vocational programs, self-directed learning on and on and on.
Nobody should have to pick between "follow this specific concept of schooling" or "be institutionalized". That's not good schooling.
> Its one that lets students figure out what they're good at before they have to be on their own.
The best way to figure out what you are good at is to do it. That is not the role of school and will never best be served by school.
I know we've gotten caught up in a society that dreads children doing anything other than academics and sports, but it needn't be that way. In this hypothetical ideal society, it is most definitely not that way. Be careful to not let a poorly considered status quo cloud your judgement.
> Whatever your criteria for the term "rare", that is a huge number of kids.
It is! When I go to the school to pick up my child, it is shocking how many have overtly visible challenges, never mind those who don't present to someone just casually walking in the door. It is rare, but rare is still a lot of people in large populations.
I live next door to Michigan and 3% of the students have their own personal assistant in school for the schools to be able to cope to their severe challenges, and, by accounts of family who work in that industry, that many more should have an assistant but there isn't a sufficient workforce to fill those roles. So that is around 6% of the students, give or take, right there who aren't really a good fit for being in schools. Used to be that they would have been dumped into institutions and never step foot in school, but that's not socially acceptable anymore.