A standard argument for mandatory schooling is that it reduces crime. Behind that argument are claims that formal education civilizes and/or that schooling gets kids off the streets where they otherwise might be. That is to say, in economics-speak, that education has positive externalities beyond whatever other value one already ascribes it.
I’m still re-reading E. G. West’s classic Education and the State, which raises some challenges to that standard argument, especially the warehousing claim, as I think of it — which is that keeping the kids in school for a certain number of hours, especially while their parents are likely working, at least keeps them safe and out of trouble.
West notes some contrary data from when England raised the age at which one could leave school from 14 to 15. What was the effect on the crime rate, especially for those in “the most crime-prone ages,” i.e., the teenage years? West quotes from an official report:
“there was an immediate change over in the delinquency record of 13 year-olds (who until then had been the most troublesome age-group) and the 14 year-olds, who took their place in 1948 and have held it consistently ever since.”
Those evaluating the unhappy data interpreted it this way: “the last year of compulsory education was also the heaviest year for juvenile delinquency and that the tendency to crime during school years was reversed when a boy went to work.”
The policy implication seems to be — if one focuses only on the issue of crime-reduction among teenagers — that work is more effective than schooling. The choice is not only between (a) unsupervised teenagers out on the streets and (b) teenagers in school but also (c) teenagers’ having the option of starting work earlier or (d) having a work-study option.
Source:
E. G. West, Education and the State (1965; third edition 1994), pp. 40-41.
Related:
E. G. West on education and the Industrial Revolution.
Driver’s education and the government-schooling debates.
And what if work is also not a choice (i.e., no jobs)?