The Maryland General Assembly is considering passing a law
that will raise the dropout age to 18. President Obama has made it clear that
there is a national concern about the high dropout rates for high school students.
The Baltimore Sun recently wrote an article explaining the pros and the cons
about the law. It is obvious by the information in the article that bill will
pass despite its many negative effects on education. Requiring students to
remain in school until the age of eighteen will cost the state about 54 million
dollars per year. The law does not take this into consideration because it has
no mention of additional money being added to the yearly education budget. Also,
another concern which lawmakers have ignored is the amount of problems that
this will cause classroom teachers. Students who are forced to sit in school
will be a major disruption to the other students.
Honestly, this law will be about effective as putting a band
aid on a bullet wound. Times have changed but the idea of school has remained
the same. The time has come for not just individual schools, but the idea of
school to be reformed. There should be serious discussions between parents,
teachers, and administration about the purpose and expected outcomes of school.
After decisions have been made, policies should be put in effect to slowly
transform modern day schools into schools of the future.
As a current teacher of over aged student, I am confident that
raising the dropout age will have minimal effect on the dropout rate and
graduation rate. Students view school as a tumultuous, disadvantageous job that
yields no paycheck. School should prepare students for post-secondary life
whether a student chooses the college or vocational route. When students have
an invested interest in what they are learning and can clearly see the connection
between their classroom lessons and potential problems in their real life
situations, then the dropout rate will decrease. Math teachers are encouraged
to include real life applications in their lesson but students very rarely see
the relevance of those problems. A student who aspires to be a barber does not
care about how an engineer uses trigonometry but would be more interested in
learning business math. Every aspect of school needs to be reformed, even the
curriculum.
3 comments:
I agree that raising the dropout age will have little effect on graduation rates. As a teacher of 11th and 12th graders, it seems that there is little a parent or the school can do to ensure students are in school and attending class. And even if students could be forced to stay in the school building, then it is destructive to the school culture to do so. In my school, we have a handful of seniors who cannot complete their graduation requirements at this point, yet they come to school to hang out in the gym and the hallways. Younger students see these older students getting away with cutting class and think they can do the same. This breeds a culture of in-school dropouts, which is poisonous to school culture. It feels harsh to say this, but if students make up their mind to drop out, I think we should let them. I agree that schools need to be reformed in other ways before we enact a law that raises the dropout age.
This is a very interesting debate. As a teacher of 9th graders, I am less involved in the drop-out rate debate, but I agree with your original assessment: this will be like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. Even at the 9th grade, we teach many, MANY of what we call "no shows." This is that group of students that comes once a quarter, maybe once a month to pick up their bus tickets. These are 14 and 15-year-olds -- well below the current drop-out age. And their chronic absenses are rampant; it is an effectual drop out, the child is NEVER in school!
There is a different issue at heart here. And of course, budgets at the state and district level are what drive these newspaper articles, but we should be asking the question: what opportunities are these drop outs leaving for? What makes them think that school is a waste of time, not for them, or a place where they can't succeed? It is the answers to these questions that we should be pondering, not the legal age at which we'll "allow" children to stop coming to school.
This is a very interesting topic and personally I think this law sends a negative message to our children. First, I do agree with raising the dropout age to 18 years of age, this is the legal age when young people become adults and supposedly have the capabilities and capacity to make dicisions that would affect their lives. The previous law allowed students to drop out at the tender age of 16 which is only 3 years after a child becomes a teenager. A 16 year old does not have the capacity to make this kind of decision and should not be given the forum to do so.
I expressed that this law sends a negative message to our students. It indirectly tells our students that it is okay to drop out of school. This law promotes not finishing Highschool and not climbing that moutain to college. I am not sure what would be an alternative for this law but I know raising the dropout age is not one of them. Students should be encouraged to stay in school and finish and pursue higher education. I know it is unrealistic to think school is for every student or that no student will never considering dropping out but giving the student's an option to dropout at 18 should never be an option.
Antwan Hayes
Post a Comment