National Youth Rights Association

Student Liberation Project was created to connect students with the vast amount of anti compulsory schooling literature that can be found in books, magazines, and websites. It also has resources available for students who want to fight back in meaningful ways. Here is an excerpt from This Book Is Not Required, by Inge Bell:

We are so used to the system that it seems inevitable. Most people have to admit to themselves that, if grades were to disappear tomorrow, they might never learn another set of irregular verbs and might, indeed, just lie down and not move for a very long time. Naturally! This is a result of the system, not a reason for it. Having been bullied all your life into learning things you didn't much want to know, you would, indeed, quit if you could and so, perhaps, would most of your professors. I suspect, though, that in a few months you would get up, look around, and begin to take an altogether different sort of interest in altogether different kinds of knowledge.

Why do our schools function in this way? Why is intellectual curiosity regularly killed in order to teach discipline? Why do our schools give even seven-year old children failing grades? Whenever sociologists see a system operating in "dysfunctional" ways, they suggest that we have not discovered the "real" function of the system. A hint is given us here in the fact that the only schools which don't beat up their students emotionally are a few private and public schools which serve the rich. The real purpose of school is to make people obedient to authority. The mindlessness of school is meant to prepare people for unquestioned acceptance of the mindlessness of most jobs. And, perhaps most importantly, it is the job of schools to convince those who will have lousy jobs and low wages that their fate is their fault…that they just weren't smart enough (translate, deserving enough) to do any better.