(continued)
3. "It remains valid, and your argument is invalid, to the extent that the State dictates curriculum content"
No it doesn't. Merely determining curriculum content doesn't prevent the needs of individual students being addressed.

4. "I'll write it in one sentence: a right cannot consist of aggression or threats of aggression against another person because the whole purpose of ethics is to stop problems of scarcity being solved in that way – ‘might is right’.
So you're contradicting yourself again. There's no such thing as a "right" to threaten to imprison people to force them to submit to your taking their property. "
But by that logic, nor do they have a right to use aggression or threats of aggression to defend their property, so yet again your accusation of contradicting myself is false.

"Just think. When, during your entire life, did state school ever teach you that state education is based on threatening to imprison people to enforce funding and attendance? First class? No. Second class? No. Year 12? No. "
No, I don't think they ever propagated that myth.

"You've never thought about it critically in your life"
Not only is that a wild stab in the dark, but considering the unwillingness you've shown to even consider opinions other than the one you favour, I think there's quite a high probability that that criticism can accurately be applied to yourself. Though of course I can't possibly know enough about you to be certain of that.

"You are contradicting yourself at every turn"
No. I'm contradicting you and your strawman at every turn.

"You're only proving you’ve been indoctrinated into believing that compulsion is virtuous, and is not even compulsion, so long as the state is doing it; "
No I haven't. I've come to the conclusion that there are instances where compulsion by the state is justified by its effects, and that when other options exist, the first option isn't compulsory.
(tbc)

(continued)
"and that problems of scarcity are magically solved by threats of force"
Force alone can not solve problems of scarcity without replacing them with bigger problems. But law can, and laws sometimes need enforcement. There's nothing magical about that.

"completely irrational"
No, entirely rational; merely beyond your level of understanding.

"You're even contradicting yourself by participating in the discussion, since according to you, it doesn't matter whether people disagree with you, the issue is *not* to be solved by reason or agreement, it's to be solved by compulsion. "
Incorrect; you've conflated me with your own strawman yet again. Though it's true that this discussion won't itself improve opportunities for talented and disadvantaged kids (let alone affect whether state education is compulsory) changing people's opinions is important in a democracy. Though there's little hope of changing yours (as you seem unwilling to consider other viewpoints) other people will also read this.

"Thank you for proving categorically and repeatedly that the State has brainwashed you to confuse compulsory with voluntary social relations – the most fundamental ethical error possible”
Again, that was your strawman not me.

" - and that rights are whatever the State says they are no matter how self-contradictory: - and you’ve swallowed it hook, line and sinker. “
Yet you’ve failed to provide a better alternative definition.

"You’re only exhibiting that you’ve been taught it doesn’t matter that what you believe and say is demonstrably untrue."
By exposing the faulty reasoning by which you consider it to be "demonstrably untrue" I've demonstrated the opposite.

So are funding and attendance compulsory, or not?

Funding? No, that's done by the governments, not the people. How governments obtain their funds is a separate issue.

Attendance? Only compulsory for those enrolled. There is no compulsion to enrol children in a state school - people are free to make other arrangements. Education is compulsory, but state education is not.

Attendance is only compulsory in concept, the practice requires a willingness to enforce which is often conspicuously absent.

If a parent is prepared to provide an excuse for a child's failure to attend, the school has to make a judgement about the genuineness of that excuse and then has to make a judgement about whether the failure to attend is in effect truant and then has to decide whether to proceed against the parent for facilitating truancy.

Given the likely time that could elapse before a bureaucratic school principal might make an actual decision to proceed, a further judgement has to be made, which is whether there is actually any point in doing anything about it at all.

There are good school administrators who would see truancy as a primary concern, but the law of averages (and my own experience) tells me there are more principals who place meeting other bureaucratic measures of performance at a higher priority than educating children who don't want to be cooperative.

All

Notice how no-one can defend state interventions in education other than by denying that it's compulsory?

So they advocate a system based on compulsory funding, compulsory attendance, compulsory curriculum, and compulsory teacher qualifications.

Then when challenged to justify it, both Aidan and Craig pretend that there is no compulsion.

But of course if it's not compulsory, then you would have no objection to the abolition of the state's interventions, wouldn't you?

So we have just seen that the arguments for state intervention in education are fundamentally flim-flam, self-contradictory, nonsense.

Ethical values and economic values have in common that they are a sub-set of human values. The question is whether state intervention in education produces a net benefit for human values, however the ultimate human welfare criterion is defined.

What we have just seen is that the apologists for state intervention can't justify it because:
a) to defend it, they have to try to confuse compulsory with not-compulsory, which is ethically false
b) they therefore confuse A with not-A, which is logically false, and
c) they are incapable of establishing that decision-making by compulsion is better able to satisfy the relevant wants of society - students', parents', taxpayers', and all the other satisfactions wanted and foregone - any better than would obtain in the absence of the state intervention. So it's economically false as well.

Therefore no-one has demonstrated, because no-one can demonstrate, because it's false, that the State can improve opportunities for talented and disadvantaged kids, without contradicting themselves about the values they are trying to advance.