This is kinda tangential and hella cynical, so feel free to ignore the following. > Does the positive right for every child to receive 12 years of education re

This is kinda tangential and hella cynical, so feel free to ignore the following. > Does the positive right for every child to receive 12 years of education result in slavery? It isn't slavery. It's just imprisonment. At least, that's how it felt to me and it's how it feels to a lot of kids who haven't lost touch with their own true feelings in order to please the adults around them. I don't think children actually get 12 years of education. They might spend twelve years going to school, but the actual academic education they get is probably something they could pick up with a year of concerted effort. It's a grotesque waste of a child's time to keep them in school for so long just for such a limited academic program, but that seems to be the outer curriculum. The inner curriculum is about habits: obedience, punctuality, constructive obsession (aka "good work habits"). It's not the academics that matter in the real world, but the ability to do what you're told and con yourself into thinking that jumping through hoops is inherently worthwhile. We call the kids who excel at this "college material", and allow them to do more of the same at their own eventual expense via student loans.