19. Should school attendance be mandatory? In your answer, be sure to explore what the function of education is, and what our nation would look like if the masses were less educated.

School attendance should not be mandatory. Public schools have adopted the image of free education. Students do not have to pay and are allowed to be given an eduction. I do not see it as free education. I see it as forced education in which children initially forced by their parents are placed into a system that requires you to attend school from an early age till you're an adult. It is required to attend school 5 days a week. There is a punishment if you do not attend, that which is detention or a bad citizenship grade. This then punishes you later on with college and it can be the difference as to whether you get accepted or rejected into such college. As said before it is forced education not free. Mandatory attendance is even enforced by the law so much that if you get caught walking outside of school during school hours you are fined for doing so. Its gone so far as to being called illegal. Is it really then Free education? With "free" education one should be able to decide whether he or she wants to take this opportunity to be educated. If a person decides not to go to college, why should they have to attend school to learn so much more then they really need to know for their future? And for those that might miss a day or two or even up to a week find themselves in trouble for not having attended. But what if they had an emergency or were having problems and needed some time off to fix things? Mandatory attendance scolds them for missing these couple of days. By not having mandatory attendance the students should take the initiative to attend, it should be their own responsibility and they should take it upon themselves to go to school on time and every day. Responsibility is taught cause of this, and it helps those who shouldn't really be getting in to trouble because of missing.