Why school?

Once upon a time, I spent a lot of time thinking about the purposes of school.
With yesterday's discussion, as well as Robin Hansen's new post from yesterday, I should elaborate.

What values does school support?
In a distinctly not priority-determined list:

1. Impart knowledge.
2. Babysitting
3. Status for parents
4. Signalling of dilligence/persistence
5. Signalling of base IQ
6. Signalling of obedience/conformity
7. Propaganda/creating uniform culture. (Horace Mann, why we have schools at all)
8. Verify knowledge. (testing)
9. Create social context with peers.
10. Keep kids (mostly) out of workforce.
11. Impart skills (different from knowledge -- includes Cowen's autism stuff)
12. Generate conformity/obedience (duh).
13. Impart habits (including mental habits).
14. Separate people into tracks. (tracking, elite schools, etc.)
15. Allow wide exploration of future options. (justify broad curriculum & not 3Rs)
16. Prepare for future. (good education theory)
17. Bring more of world under self-control. (Montessori def).