Fabian Tassano has provided the convincing that I needed to support his campaign against extension of the school leaving age. His point is that this is not, as I had erroneously thought, a string attached to an offer of public financial support, but applies to anyone whether they are self-supporting or not.

This is clearly wrong. I'm convinced.

On a similar subject, Instapundit does a podcast today with Dr Robert Epstein who advocates letting teenagers leave school when they want to - providing they can pass the exams. This strikes me as a much more sensible idea for the twenty first century.