Re: the requirement that the state *provide* an education

While I'm loathe to generalize too much from fiction, I'm reminded of David

Fentuch's Seafort Saga, where he's extrapolated a society where education
is 
voluntary on the part of the parents, homeschooling/private schooling are 
the only options, and children often enter adult occupations, fully 
educated, in their very early teens.

A good part of the series deals with the conflicts between the educated 
"Uppie" population, who largely live in high rise buildings and armed 
compounds, and the "Transpops", an uneducated, general population who have

taken over the cities, living on charity, crime, and whatever else they
can 
do to get by. It's a pretty grim picture.

In the USA, at least (and I believe in most developed countries), while 
there is absolutely a multi-tiered system of education where money buys 
more, both in the sense of private schooling and in the sense of higher 
property values and good PTAs often providing extra sup****t for public 
schools in those areas (and in many ways, homeschooling is often the most 
expensive form of schooling out there, since it usually requires forgoing 
one adult's income for a substantial period of time.), at least there's a 
minimum level of education available to all, and parents are largely 
prevented from choosing not to educate their minor children, so at least 
that child has a chance. Not an even one, not a good one, in many cases,
but 
at least a chance.

And, having taught in the inner city, I really think that "chance" is
about 
the only thing which separates Fentuch's dystopic world from ours.