Requiring Maryland students to remain in school until they turn age 18 could drastically reduce dropout rates
This conclusion, published in the Baltimore Sun on 11 February 2008 (and available here), was the result of "A yearlong study by a statewide task force of 50 educators, community leaders and legislators." It is obvious that not allowing students to drop out will decrease the number of students who drop out, however this conclusion is based on a very narrow conception of the complex educational system, which simply sees dropping out as bad. This view does not recognize the broader unintended consequences that could potentially result from increasing the compulsory attendance age.
In the spectrum of high school students, those who drop out are generally the farthest behind academically, and also have a harder time getting along with the various adults in the building, and are more disruptive in the classroom as a result. It is true that if we force these students to stay in school, they will make more academic progress. However, it will be to the detriment of the remainder of the student body in the last two years of high school. Forcing disruptive students to stay in school longer will benefit those students, but it has other negative side effects. It could reduce the graduation rate, and the students who do graduate will be even less adequately prepared for college or work.
Continuing this line of thought to its logical conclusion, we should actually decrease the compulsory attendance age. To be clear, I would not suggest this as a one-piece reform of our current system, and for one important reason: once a student drops out, they have essentially waived their right to any further free public education. Instead, I imagine a system with compulsory attendance until age 13, and then every student has a right to 5 further years of free public education; if a student drops out at any point, they can always come back to complete their 5 years. There would be separate schools for returning students of different ages, to prevent having older returning students put in class with normally-tracked students--also, the schools could offer evening or weekend hours for returning students who work. Similarly, if a student falls significantly behind (say, two years), they would be transferred to an alternative school.
This system would benefit everyone, even students who drop out. For students who move through the system normally, they will enjoy a classroom environment with fewer distractions where students are all on a similar academic level. Nowadays, many adults who previously dropped out are struggling to earn their GEDs. In this alternative system, these adults would still have access to the public education that they left behind when they dropped out.
These changes may sound crazy, but they are in fact how most universities work (minus the "free public" part--or at least the "free" part). If a student has difficulties with academics or conduct, they may be forced to take a leave of absence--it is clear that attending a university is a privilege. While everyone has a right to a certain level of free public education, our current system is designed more along the lines that every parent has a right to free public child care. This brings up the big question regarding allowing 13 year olds to drop out--if they're not in school, what are they doing? Children between 13 and 18, if they are not attending school, could be required to participate in some sort of non-trivial work or volunteer activities (which raises another whole series of questions regarding child labor, etc., but that's beyond the scope of this post).
The ultimate goal of this system is to ensure that education is not a limited-time offer. Students will have the opportunity to learn when they are ready to learn, rather than wasting their opportunities and teenage years by sitting in classrooms they don't want to be in, only to later learn the tough real-world lessons about the value of an education. In this sense, even the students who drop out will learn at a faster rate--they will learn these life lessons sooner, then will have the opportunity to return and receive the free public education they had previously not valued.
3 comments:
One of the most disappointing things about teaching in Baltimore City and the state of Maryland as a whole is the fact that students have the right to drop out of school at the age of 16. This has led to an influx of children out of the school system trying to survive in this world with limited education and even more limited options. In a city such as Baltimore this can lead to an increase in crime, poverty, and incarceration because there is no place in the economy where these individuals can find the work necessary to have a productive life. I think that the age should be raised to 18. In addition to that, I also think that there needs to be mor teeth put into dtop-out prevention, twiligh education prgrams, as well as the GEd office. in a presentiation in a class that I had last fall we were informed that the GED office has seven people working trying to servie thousands of students. That is simply unacceptable. There are children who are going to drop out of school and a net must be established to catch those children when they do. - Baba Olumiji
Compulsory education is evil. Why do you have to go to school? So you can get a good job. Why do the good jobs demand school? To make sure their workers aren't stupid. That doesn't make any sense because school fails at rewarding achievement and knowledge. It only rewards "processes" such as turning in work and attending class, you don't actually have to learn anything. Lack of schooling doesn't equal stupidity or ignorance since those things aren't cured in the first place by school. A lot of these white college kids who do drugs and cheat on tests like Asher Roth have no passion for learning, they just paid their way into a university and want to establish credentials to trick employers into thinking they are good people.
Drop outs are equally as stupid/smart as the people moving on to college to "become somebody".
Schooling is not synonymous with education.
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