Raise dropout age to 18 - The Boston Globe:
"BILLS TO raise the compulsory school age have been kicking around the State House as aimlessly as high school dropouts on graduation day. And like those dropouts, the bills will need to be nurtured carefully if they are ever to amount to anything."
Last week, the Legislature’s Education Committee held a hearing on a bare-bones-bill that would raise the dropout age from 16 to 18. Upping the age when students can leave school makes good sense - but only if lawmakers and educators focus as much on what students need to achieve success as the date on their birth certificates.
Dropping out of high school wasn’t always an irrational act. As late as the 1960s and ’70s, dropouts in Massachusetts could find decent-paying jobs in manufacturing plants. But a high school diploma is now the rock-bottom minimum requirement to establish an independent life.
"BILLS TO raise the compulsory school age have been kicking around the State House as aimlessly as high school dropouts on graduation day. And like those dropouts, the bills will need to be nurtured carefully if they are ever to amount to anything."
Last week, the Legislature’s Education Committee held a hearing on a bare-bones-bill that would raise the dropout age from 16 to 18. Upping the age when students can leave school makes good sense - but only if lawmakers and educators focus as much on what students need to achieve success as the date on their birth certificates.
Dropping out of high school wasn’t always an irrational act. As late as the 1960s and ’70s, dropouts in Massachusetts could find decent-paying jobs in manufacturing plants. But a high school diploma is now the rock-bottom minimum requirement to establish an independent life.