Talk:Oregon Compulsory Education Act

Seeking clarification of the citation request for Supreme Court decision
It's unclear what assertion is being challenged by the tag. Surely the Supreme Court ruling speaks for itself regarding the "challenged and struck down" part. As for the "before it went into effect", that information is likely in the ruling as well. Would it suffice to provide a formal citation to the Supreme Court case (e.g. on Findlaw) rather than just a wikilink to the Wikipedia article? --Richard (talk) 23:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

New article is needed
It is rather depressing that to type in "Compulsory Education Act" in the box on the left, one gets redirected here. In the United Kingdom, where I live, 1870 is a very famous date in British history - it was the year of the Compulsory Education Act. Nor was this by any means the first of such acts in Europe - that honour goes to Austria. A much more widespread article is needed on the compulsory education act in different countries across Europe, not just an article on some specific act in Oregon. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 15:32, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * good point -- i fixed it to point to Elementary Education Act 1870 Rjensen (talk) 17:55, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I've changed the redirect to point at Compulsory_Education_Act_(disambiguation). ACEOREVIVED is right that there should be an article on the general topic of compulsory education.  Unfortunately, I do not have the time to work on that now.  If someone else wants to take a whack at it, it would be much appreciated. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 18:12, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Effect of Oregon Legislation Misstated
Although the Oregon Act required parents to send their children to public schools, it did not, in terms, prohibit them from sending students to private schools. The text of the act is quoted in the Supreme Court's opinion in Pierce v. Society of Sisters. Obviously, though, if a child attended a public school, there would be little need, or even desire, to send him to a private school as well.John Paul Parks (talk) 20:12, 28 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The tagging in the article is not too useful. In any case, even if you're correct, the article effectively forbid private education as an alternative to public education (instead of as a supplement to public education), and the courts decided on that basis. AnonMoos (talk) 00:05, 16 February 2014 (UTC)