I must respectfully disagree, for a few somewhat related reasons. First, for a democracy to function, the voters need to be at least sufficiently educated to u

I must respectfully disagree, for a few somewhat related reasons. First, for a democracy to function, the voters need to be at least sufficiently educated to understand the issues. Second, for an advanced capitalistic society with heavy automation to function, the work force needs to be at least sufficiently educated to handle nontrivial jobs. And third, minors, lacking in experience, often make decisions that their older self would regret. Right or wrong our society tries to protect them against at least the worst of these bad decisions. This is precisely why we permit minors to rescind contracts (under most circumstances). Now, with all that said, I think our society might benefit from offering trade schools/apprenticeships more readily and earlier in the educational system then it currently does, given consent of both the minor and the gaurdian. This may prove more useful to many of them then an academic course that is largely geared towards the college admissions process.