Compulsory School Age
Raising the Compulsory School Attendance Age to 18
“Any young person without a high school diploma is at a severe disadvantage in our high-tech labor market, with its accompanying demands for advanced education. We can’t prepare students for the 21st century who aren’t in school. Increasing graduation rates requires a continuum of strategies that engage students, including ensuring their presence in the classroom.” The above-mentioned quote by National Education Association (NEA) President Dennis Van Roekel sizes up the situation crisply. Although critics contend that students inclined to dropping out of school will quit school anyway and education is a responsibility of local and state governments and raising the compulsory school age will have little effect, research indicates there are benefits in raising the national compulsory school attendance age to 18.
Current Problem
Compulsory school attendance refers to the minimum and maximum age required by each state for students to be enrolled in and attending public schools or some comparable education program as defined by law. The good news is student in the United States are graduating from high school at a rate better than any time since 1976; the bad news is about 20 percent still drop out, most of whom are minorities. The figures are from the National Center for Education Statistics’ report, “Public School Graduates and Dropouts from the Common Core of Data: School Year 2009-2010.”
Dropouts face extremely bleak economic and social prospects. Compared to high school graduates, they are less likely find a job and earn a living wage, and more likely to be poor and to suffer from a variety of adverse health outcomes. The statistics are sobering. Both in the short-term, when dropouts first leave school, and in the long-term, over their entire working lives, dropouts are severely disadvantaged relative to students who complete high (Rumberger, p. 88, 2011). Dropouts are almost twice as likely to be
“Any young person without a high school diploma is at a severe disadvantage in our high-tech labor market, with its accompanying demands for advanced education. We can’t prepare students for the 21st century who aren’t in school. Increasing graduation rates requires a continuum of strategies that engage students, including ensuring their presence in the classroom.” The above-mentioned quote by National Education Association (NEA) President Dennis Van Roekel sizes up the situation crisply. Although critics contend that students inclined to dropping out of school will quit school anyway and education is a responsibility of local and state governments and raising the compulsory school age will have little effect, research indicates there are benefits in raising the national compulsory school attendance age to 18.
Current Problem
Compulsory school attendance refers to the minimum and maximum age required by each state for students to be enrolled in and attending public schools or some comparable education program as defined by law. The good news is student in the United States are graduating from high school at a rate better than any time since 1976; the bad news is about 20 percent still drop out, most of whom are minorities. The figures are from the National Center for Education Statistics’ report, “Public School Graduates and Dropouts from the Common Core of Data: School Year 2009-2010.”
Dropouts face extremely bleak economic and social prospects. Compared to high school graduates, they are less likely find a job and earn a living wage, and more likely to be poor and to suffer from a variety of adverse health outcomes. The statistics are sobering. Both in the short-term, when dropouts first leave school, and in the long-term, over their entire working lives, dropouts are severely disadvantaged relative to students who complete high (Rumberger, p. 88, 2011). Dropouts are almost twice as likely to be
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