Hiking Compulsory Age Helps No One

Lawmakers in Des Moines are considering hiking the compulsory attendance age to 18. The last thing our public schools need is more kids who don’t want to be educated. Some legislators have a new take on the old saying: you can lead a student to a school and you can make him think. While some drop-outs have unmet needs, some young adults simply refuse to be educated. Schools shouldn’t be places to keep “kids out of trouble” because too often, we bring the trouble to our kids.

The truth is that drop-outs see little reason for completing high school because they know they lack the skills to pass their current school work thanks to social promotion. At age 16, they may read at a 6th grade level; therefore, a diploma doesn’t represent marketable skills. These students are more honest in their assessment than schools which will hand them a paper and tell students they statistically have a better chance of success.

Drop-outs see little relevancy to their education because they have been told that success is a four year college degree. Instead, we ought to tailor education to students’ needs by giving them the opportunity to explore trades through vocational programs, many of which have suffered severe cutbacks.

And for a student who refuses to be educated, why force him to be in a desk with his head down and pretend we’ve solved the problem? Could it be that the student will learn the merits of the work world and later earn a GED once maturity and the real world help him along?

What we should never do is legislate that 17 year olds must be in school. Adding another retention specialist to a budget, pointing to more high school diplomas, or keeping older kids under the compulsion of the law will not bolster our workforce or help young people.

Think about it.