Hey Jewely, I was quite surprised to find myself in direct opposition to your post about hating the back to school solution; paying an hourly rate for education is a harp I've been strumming for decades.
Of course, I would have to add a very large IF.
IF the teenage parents could take their babies to school with them...
I would like to see childcare centres become more community centres, where parents were encouraged to stay with their kids.
What then is the point of having child care centres, you might ask?
Well at the risk of offending multiculturalists, some parents 'cultures' are questionable at best; like multi generational welfare recipients.
Perhaps childcare centres could be places where 'bad' parents could hopefully learn -by example- from 'good' parents.
And maybe get a formal education at the same time.
And of course your point about avoiding the issue by simply having another baby is spot on, but will always be an issue as long as we pay parents to have children.
This is a huge topic which deserves to go on, and on, and on...

You have touched on something there, weareunique.

It is amazing how little we know about the long term unemployed and how much value (productive capacity), exists among such people.

It is also amazing how little employers know about the skill sets of their employee's, resulting in in many cases, the wrong people doing the wrong job.

Above all, most people just want to be a functioning and/or acceptable contributor to the hive, if given the chance.

You are correct of course WAU, about red tape, but this theme continues on, all the way to the nanny state, based upon the theory that most people given the chance, wont do the right thing, and therefore require random interdictions into our privacy to assure that order is being adhered too.

This theory is wrong. Most people given the chance to embark on the path of worthy contributor to the hive, choose to do so,
and do so willingly, and with some self satisfaction.

It is the encroachments on personal freedom by the control freaks among us, that make the hive itself less attractive,
and as a result, more like a bee hive than a human hive.

In a human hive you search for queens (or exceptional human beings), and do so with an open mind, from the drone population as well. In order that balance be maintained and the inherent (deep seated) genetic satisfaction of knowing that the best interests of most people, and the other inhabitants of our planet etc are being served.

Such is the hive mentality. Further disenfranchising the unfortunate, less able, less willing or even the less understood amongst us, may be a convenient political philosophy, but it is a short term fix at best. A complete misconception at worst.

Rehtub

I learned enough by the end of primary school to do some of the jobs that I have done. Maybe the real lesson that kids get from special education is that those who stuff-up the most get the best treatment.

Grim

I like your idea, some schools are looking at ways of keeping students' kids with them. The problem that they come up against is that they become subject to the sort of over-regulation that plagues childcare centres.

Unique

I got my first job by sitting on a bench near the gate of a meatworks. I got my second job with a two minute phone call. Now it is all resumes, referees, medical checks and inductions. No wonder so many long term unemployed find it all so daunting.