The Newest Big Ol’ Band-Aid for the Drop Out Problem

For the past month or so there has been quite a buzz around BCPSS about the state’s proposal to raise the minimum age of attendance from 16 with parental consent to 18. When presenting this debate to my students, they immediately said, as I would imagine, most people would “Of course! We should ensure that all students get an education!” When looking at the numbers in a recent Baltimore Sun article, I was a bit astonished myself. In Maryland last year 10,294 students dropped out last year. That’s in one year! As a point of comparison, this is about a hundred people less than the borough, Freehold, that neighbored my town growing up. These numbers alone suggest that the drop out rate is an alarmingly serious problem. In my school alone, I have seen about a dozen of my own students leave school this year for one reason or another before receiving their degree, some of them seniors. It is devastating and seems senseless.
What would this look like? According to the February 11th article “Drop Out Rate Targeted”, would result in an increase of “21,000 students” and would require 1,000 more teachers. It would mean an incredible increase in spending as well. Educational spending however would offset other areas of government spending. So would this be a wise move?
My take—No, if it were only that simple! Drop-out rates are a symptom of the systemic problem. If the compulsory attendance age would have solved the issue of drop outs, this would likely have been put in place years ago. To further emphasize this point, one need only look at the definition of truant according to MSDE. Students who are identified as truant are those with more than 10 absences. This, quite unfortunately, describes a large body of students in the city school system. This is students up to the age 16. The vast majority of these students are not being brought to truancy court for their poor attendance. Raising the compulsory age to 18 would only increase the number of students who were in violation. In order to ensure students were in compliance with the new law would require an influx of resources that the state, in my opinion, is not willing or able to address. Furthermore, it does not seem that legal action is the best method to ensure that our kids get an education. It would however ensure that they were in a school building for at least a portion of the day some of the time. Schools would become “holding grounds” for students who have no interest in being at school but due to financial penalties are backed into a corner.
I strongly believe that all of Maryland’s children should be in school until 18 years of age at which time they have earned a high school diploma through hard work and meaningful academic and social interaction. Unfortunately, this is not the state of our schools. The government could be far more successful at their drop out prevention by looking at the root of drop out itself. Raising the age of compulsory attendance is a big old band-aid for a gaping wound.