Oh yes, we all see what a terrific job that mandatory, state-run education has been doing in the US.

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Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."

Exactly right. Every child should be accorded the opportunity to attain a basic education as a springboard to college or technical school.

Good question, the first one.

If they are adopted then the adopted parents make the decision.
Where ever they happen to be the adult that is responsible for them should make the decision.
Education is paid for by taxes. If they want a private education for their child but can not afford it then they should have considered that before having a child in the first place.

What would you suggest as an alternative?

I would disagree. People are "entitled to" an education as education is freedom, without it people are easily manipulated and controled and reduced to slaves that aren't even allowed to think for themselves.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

Make it not mandatory.
Introduce a voucher system.

Is it necessarily a "better" education just because it costs more? Teach a child a skilled trade and you'll make him better "educated" than forcing that child to endure some government indoctrination center where he will most likely leave still not being able to read much more than a newspaper and still not being able to find where a major city like New Orleans is on a map.

Unlike you and your socialist buddies, I have no silly illusions about humans all being equal in capabilities or about how giving everyone exactly the same education is somehow going to magically improve even the village idiot (the MBA from an Ivy League university certainly didn't help America's current President).

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

When it's the government providing the education, the people are not merely being manipulated, they're being indoctrinated. The result is that they become nothing more than mere sheeple.

__________________
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Compared to 200 years ago, when women that could add were condemned, if you were born poor you stayed poor your entire life, no ifs, ands, or buts, and black kids were only got to got to school to learn how to cut cotton as quickly and with as little water and food as possible.

__________________
Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

I might argue that you succeeded despite your public school education.

__________________
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."