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City council wants to require kids to stay in school two more years
By adamg on Thu, 09/22/2011 - 6:24am
The Boston City Council voted unanimously yesterday to seek approval from the state legislature to raise the dropout age from 16 to 18.
At-large Councilor John Connolly, who co-sponsored the request with District 7 Councilor Tito Jackson, said 16 no longer makes sense in a society that has outgrown its agrarian roots, in which even a high-school diploma is barely enough to succeed. He added:
"We don't allow 16 year olds to smoke, drink or vote, but we will allow them to make a decision that will put the lowest of ceilings on their future. 16 year olds are not equipped to make that decision."
Jackson said, if nothing else, there's an economic reason for raising the age: Dropouts are far more likely to wind up in prison, and the annual cost of educating a student in Boston is $11,000, compared to the $47,000 cost of keeping a person in prison for one year.
Both councilors said raising the age will also take increased efforts by schools to work with the at-risk kids to keep them engaged and prepare them for college or the modern workforce. Connolly praised current efforts by Boston Public Schools to do that.
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Comments
Interesting.
I wonder how many of these 16-18 year olds that are now forced to stay in school are going to go to college, and be succesfull because of their college degrees.
I'm kind of in the opinion that if you can't handle school by 16, you probably aren't going to benefit that much by staying in school or going to college. I guess if they are prepared for the "modern workforce", then this may be a good idea.
Teenage Angst
Pete, do you remember what it is like to be a teenager? I do.
I remember being a teenager.. not too long ago.. in the 1990s. And I remember having a ton of angst in my blood. I hated to school. And I couldn't wait to get out of school. In my town, the drop out age was 18, not 16, so we were forced (unless given permission by a guardian) to stay in school.
If you ask any Teenager if they want to continue school or drop out at age 16, many.. filled with 'teen angst' would drop out. Many kids just don't like school, yet don't see the ramifications of dropping out. Most teens could care less about the ramifications, as long as they get out of there.
I graduated with the help of (what is now known as) a charter school. And I'm glad I did. However, at age 35, I can't help regret many choices I made in High School, like taking easy courses just to get the credits done, and not going off to college directly after school. I never took any science classes beyond the required life science and biology, or any harder math courses outside of Algebra I (which I passed with a D- ). I deeply regret many of the choices I made back then, as they've come back to haunt me in my lack of education.
If they don't want to raise the age to 18, they should at least REQUIRE a that the kid passes the GED before being let go. There's absolutely no reason why someone today doesn't have a high school diploma. I mean you need a GED or HSD to work at McDonald's. I don't want to spend the rest of my working life supporting some kid with "angst" early in life, who dropped out, and now can't get a job, and lives in Welfare or Assistance, all because they were 'hating school' and 'had a way out' to leave it.
I hear ya cybah
But is it the lack of a diploma (a piece of paper that said you graduated from somewhere) that hurts you? Or is it the lack of education (knowing how to read, write, think critically, etc) that is hurt you?
I guess my main point is that getting a "diploma" doesn't really mean anything if you are being forced to stay in school.
And I'm taking a guess that these kids who drop out aren't choosing easy classes so they can pass (without trying), they are choosing easy classes because they are the only ones they can pass. I figured that out in College when I took a medium level Spanish class (Mexican Lit) when I aced the AP exam.
My other point is that 16 years old might be too late to start focusing on the educational basics that you should have picked up when you are 6-10 years old. I'm going to assume that the kids who were great at reading and math in Grade 1 are going to be great at reading and math in Grade 12. Although there are many students (which you may be describing yourself as) who kind of lose interest in School at somepoint between those ages. I know several kids who were very smart but just weren't interested in studying once they got to that studying age (6th grade?). They started smoking, cut classes, didn't do homework, and all the other things that some dropouts seem to do.
I should clarify
Lack of not applying myself in school due to teenage angst is what hurt me. I graduated with my class with the help of a Charter School (it was in the basement of my high school). I received a "CAP" diploma (which for all sakes and purposes is a HS Diploma..). Again I graduated.
Getting a diploma means a lot, even if you are forced. Again see my comment about getting an entry level job. Its sad when you see applicants come in for an entry level job and don't have a diploma or GED.
a GED should be a requirement if they aren't going to stay in school for the HS Diploma.
Connolly brought up this exact thing
At a hearing on Tuesday - that 16 is really too late to start working on intervention, because by then, the kids have already been cutting classes and the like for several years.
Deeper Problems
Keeping kids for two more years won't solve the issues that have led a particular student to want to drop out (or the faculty/administration to want them to go away).
Two more years won't liberate a student from a drug problem. It won't make their parents care about them, or able to care about them. It won't get their parents to believe that education is valuable if they don't already, or stop them from expecting that a kid that age should be working full time and handing over the paycheck. It won't likely address learning disabilities, either.
Not every kid who wants to drop out has these issues. However, no amount of stay in school message or required attendence will solve these issues, either.
My concern is how disruptive
My concern is how disruptive they'll be if they don't want to be there. It's already tough enough for kids with aspirations in schools with high dropout rates. Adding a bunch of what would essentially be detainees to the mix isn't going to help them. Perhaps a separate program for would-be dropouts that focused on job preparation would be better than keeping them locked up in school.
Good slogan
Try school - it's cheaper than prison!
Even a high school diploma is barely enough to succeed today because a high school diploma means less every year. Companies give basic competency screens to BPS grads to see if they can read and follow directions. Putting those kids who'd rather drop out at 16 back in the classes with the kids who want to be there won't make it better.
I agree with pp.'s suggestion that if you can pass the GED you can leave. Offer the GED as the main route to early departure. Or boost vo-tech so they'll have even better options.
It's just bad logic to say that because drop-outs are more likely to go to jail, if you just don't let them drop out they won't go to jail. Perhaps both events have common causative factors? Maybe we should make Councilors pass the GED first.
Another interesting point sock puppet
When the teachers test first became a requirment (2000?), many colleges found that the majority of their graduates in teaching programs couldn't pass the reading/writing section of this pretty simple test.
But isn't the MCAS supposed to be the graduation requirment? I do agree that people should be able to pass some sort of test in order to get a diploma these days.
What's good for the goose
I was remarking to a Ukrainian friend that most of the things we do in this country to improve the schools make them worse.
Kids not learning math? Okay, make them all take a big bubble test. Hire a private company to create it. Hang school and teacher ratings on the results. Have a private company hire a bunch of bums part-time to grade it. Have teachers stop teaching and intensively cram kids for a month before the test. Have principals sneak in in the middle of the night and change grades.
Results? Anything but kids learning more math.
Here's the way they do it in other countries: hire mathematicians to teach math. Hire people in the top third of the college class, rather than the bottom third, to be teachers. Pay them a good middle-class wage. Respect them. Results? Kids learn more math.
MTEL heck, plenty of our teachers couldn't pass the MCAS themselves.
partially correct
People like to compare other countries to the United States. Sorry, you can't do that. I had a few math geniuses in school, but they are a rare breed. Why teach a bunch of high school kids when you can teach at a college level and not deal with the public school system (and all its bureaucracy) Sorry a mathematician is going to go for college level education first, before High School. And please, many teachers make around 50-60k, which in MA is a decent middle-class wage (yes I am aware some teachers make less, but then again, *most* jobs start out at low pay).
The issue with American Public School Students is America itself. Why work hard and learn math when you have idiots like "The Situation" who make it big by being douche bags. And why work hard when the government will just pay for you when you pop out kids like PEZ. We live in too much of a "MTV Generation" where we see the rich and famous get life handed to them on a platter (Kardashian or Hilton anyone?).
Kids have no sense of what its like to work, and work hard and see what it's like to struggle. (however if the economy keeps going in the way it has, we may be right at the brink of this). We need less MTV, Wii, PS3, and the internet, and more 'real life'. When you work for something or you see school as an opportunity, not the "because you have to go.. you don't have to be good at it, you just need to go, pass, and graduate". Its a mentality that has been engrained by years of "trying to do better for my kids than I had as a child" and typical self-serving attitude.
Remember in most countries, going to school is a PRIVILEGE, not a given right. We herd kids into classrooms and FORCE them to go. Maybe if we had a generation of two of kids who were dirt poor.. maybe are farmers who can barely read and write.. they would value what an education can do for them and they wouldn't be so apt to take it for granite. Schooling is your 'free ride out', not a 'just a given'.
Here's a different idea
Allow them to return at any time.
No age limit.
35 and want to finish? Stop by for a consultation on what you would need to do - your tax dollars probably paid for schooling and, hey, you are probably motivated now, too.
I also like the "pass the GED and leave at any time" policy.
Somehow, I don't think some administrators want people they can't push around in class, though ...
Let the unmotivated drop out ... meet their dead end ... and come back when they are ready and able to study. I've seen young relatives who "knew it all" drop out of school, then bag groceries or do total shit low-paying jobs for a year or two, then ... get their clue and finish!
One of my college housemates dropped out of high school when they instituted a mandatory attendence to pass classes policy ... not every dropout is academically untalented.
Isn't that basically the policy?
You have to be 16 to take the GED, right?
I mean, right now, it says you need a "letter of withdrawal" to leave the school, but I've known people who moved or whatever and took it without this.
In many states you can enroll in community college at 16 without a GED or diploma; you just have to take placement tests, so if you test into college-level classes, you save yourself a few years. If not, then you're pretty much paying to go to high school, but you're at least in a room with people who want to be there.