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Posted on 02/06/2012 5:01:12 PM PST by gabriellah
President Obama seems to be rather fond of mandates. We are all familiar with his health care insurance mandate and his love of executive orders. Now it seems that he wishes to solve our educational woes with mandatory high school graduation (or at least attendance until the age of 18). It seems strange that the president should choose to address this relatively minor problem so emphatically when faced with the ever more dire threats of debt the size of the nation’s economy, the prospect of a nuclear Iran, and the continuing financial crises.
First, it is important to address the issue of choice. What seems to be a common theme in politics repeats itself; the government allows individuals a choice. When individuals make the wrong choice, the government declares the ability to choose must be eliminated. This attitude is especially disquieting in a nominally “pro-choice” President. It seems that in the eyes of the administration, a seventeen-year-old girl is qualified to decide the fate of her unborn child, but is unable to decide whether or not to attend high school.
The practical reality of this proposal also brings into question its moral integrity. The federal government involves itself only to the extent of requiring states to require students to stay until graduation or their 18th birthday. Despite stripping the states of the right to decide the minimal amount of high school education, the federal government still leaves the states to pay for it. There is some degree of correlation between low graduation rates and high poverty rates in states. Mississippi, the state with the highest rate of poverty, also has a graduation rate of 63.9%. Although 100% graduation is not realistic, even under Obama’s plan, let us assume the goal of 100% graduation is achieved. This would represent a 56.5% increase in student population at Mississippi high schools. Either the state must raise taxes on its already financially beleaguered population or accept larger class sizes and fewer teachers per student. One option would harm a vulnerable economy while the other would create an environment where academic enrichment is even harder to obtain. This makes the incentive to drop out even greater.
This plan has been tried before in various states, like New Mexico, whose graduation rate is, nevertheless, only 65%, as well as Texas, which is scarcely better at 67%, and Hawaii at 69%. More positive examples do exist, like Wisconsin, with an impressive 85% graduation rate. Iowa, meanwhile, lets students drop out at 16 years old and has an astounding 93% graduation rate. Georgia also lets 16-year-old students drop out and has a graduation rate of only 54%. There does not appear to be any correlation whatsoever between minimum age for dropping out and graduation rates.
A survey conducted by John M. Bridgeland, John J. DiIulio, Jr., and Karen Burke Morison cited a number of reasons why students decided to drop out of high school. Though the individual reasons vary greatly, a common theme of disengagement seems present among them. 47% of drop-outs surveyed said that classes were uninteresting, 65% reported frequently missing class and 81% said that their education should have been more applicable to the workplace. Simply mandating graduation for these students is unlikely to produce the desired results. According to this survey, 32% had already repeated grades prior to dropping out. Before taking the drastic step of mandating high school graduation, it would be sensible to look for new ways to engage students and make their education relevant to their careers.
Nevertheless, the high school drop-out problem is far too complex to fit into the neat formula of a single solution. It may be true that mandatory attendance until the age of 18 is the best idea, but it is not likely to be the best idea in every case. As such, this problem is best addressed on a local level by state governments and individual communities who are most aware of the problems facing their schools. After all, isn’t it their choice?
I also believe apprenticeships should be used again in place of high school VOC/Tech classes if possible. Let a kid learn their trade or better yet trades through OJT. Most of all I believe the feral {no I did not misspell federal LOL} government should get out of regulation of education all together.
We can easily say you have to stay in school until 18 but those that aren’t college material get trade school. At 15 or 16, girls who aren’t cut for calculus start learning cooking or childcare or electronic assembly or hair dressing or one year nursing assistant programs. Boys who would otherwise drop out learn drafting, plumbing, electrical work, pest control, carpentry, basic computer maintenance.
Kids get an education to be productive upon adulthood. And if they hit 18 and don’t like the career they picked at 16, they can choose to go to junior college on their own dime, as is their right now.
Don’t outlaw homeschooling. Privatize all education.
Put the kids that can't read or write or hack school into trade schools and industrial training. Maybe if some kids see their future as janitors or dishwashers they'll think about their education a little more. A lot won't but, that's life.
We already graduate functional illiterates in the name of affirmative action.
It's great for motivated families. Likely very cost efficient too.
It definitely solves the behavioral issues in the modern classroom where all are mainstreamed (which finally drove my wife to retire from a school near you).
Tracking the actively interested learners from the gotta-be-there's is a huge efficiency, but not part of no child left behind (aka no children out on point).
I did finish high school. I remember when I got too my ship after basic training running into several classmates from high school that dropped out in their sophmore or junior year LOL. That was 36 years ago. They still did OK for themselves in the long run though.
1. A Federal Mandate to attend school until the age of 18? Do these people have no boundaries in how far they will go to look stupid?
2. Speaking of stupid, about a third of the kids in America are not smart enough to ever pass a GED test. Ever. Lots of them can work with their hands, their back...and some very brain challenging tasks too...but they'll never pass a math test or English Comprehension test.
We need to bring back Metal Shop, Wood Shop and Auto Shop. FFA. Any and all sundry variety of education in the trades.
The idea that every kid can learn book learnin' is ludicrous on it's face, much less every kid needs to go to college!
I've met a couple of teachers and of course they have a college degree...dumb as rocks. Can't perform simple calculations in their head and are equally challenged with the written and spoken word.
The President doesn’t have the Constitutional authority to make such a mandate. Nor did Carter have any authority to create a Dept. of Education. And sorry to say on the Gipper’s B-Day, (The best Pres in my lifetime) but Reagan missed a prime opportunity to get rid of this beast during both his terms. In fact he aided it.
“Voting against rats should be mandatory.” Amen, Amen, Amen!
I suck at math on paper but if you put it in the real world I’m fine. I’ll never be a rocket scientist but I made a damn fine factory foreman.
By the next fall I was in the Navy and worked on the carriers large chill water A/C units and walk in refrigerators. When I got out I went to VOC/Tech twice. Once was for more refrigeration training and then I tool an industrial wiring course afterward.
Even though I had to retire medically at age 36 I had learned several trades. While in school I worked at a V.A. cemetery and learned some basic tractor/front end loader operations. I was also in the national guards at that time and took an interest too truck driving. So I took a commercial driving course and drove an 18 wheeler till till my other field opened up and the early 1980’s recession ended. I worked as a clerk a few months.
Last job I was a maintenance mechanic on a 50 acre health care facility. Duties there included boiler operation, HVAC operator/mechanic, Electrician. Plumber, and carpenter. My specialties were the HVAC and all electrical trouble shooting repairs etc.
The ability too learn jobs fast despite learning issues I had with book studies kept me in work and made it easier for me to find other work when a job ended due too economics. I have my high school diploma. Could I pass the G.E.D. today? No. Do I have a higher quality education than many graduating today? Likely so. The basics stuck with me. Kids are not learning the basics today. They are learning only too take test.
No.
Mandatory education, if it exists at all, should end after eighth grade.
High school should be both voluntary and conditional on good behavior and satisfactory progress towards a diploma.
You got that right. If it was good enough for Jethro Bodine, it's good enough for the entire country.
Remember, Jethro had a multifaceted career. He was an Actor, a Playboy, a Banker, a Doctor, a Lawyer, a Casting Agent, the list goes on and on.
But then again some college professors lack enough common sense too drive themselves too and from campus. They can't quite grasp the concept of how to operate a motor vehicle nor traffic flow etc.
There was also this other man who was a drop out. His name was Dave Thomas. The man who founded Wendy's. Thomas later in life stated dropping out was a mistake. I think it may not have been quite true for him in his case. His dropping out is what lead him too meeting and working for a very important person. His idea for the square burger likely came when he was 12 years old working in Knoxville, Tennessee for the Regas Brothers at an upscale restaurant.
About a block away from their restaurant was a fast food burger place at the time either called Blue Circle or Krystal but I'm almost certain it was Blue Circle. Hard to remember back 40 years. But I do remember both places. Blue Circle has been gone since the early 70's and Regas closed down a couple years ago. The burger joint though served a square burger similar to Krystal and White Castle. He lived in Knoxville likely a couple of years.
Later at about age 16 close to the age he dropped out he met Harland Sanders the founder of KFC. Sanders took him under his wing and later Thomas used his gained knowledge from the Regas Brothers and Sanders to launch his own chain. Had Thomas not dropped out? He likely would have never met Sanders. Thomas dropped out of high school because his parents were moving too another city and he wished to remain where they were living according to his Bio. But had he not stayed he may not have met Sanders and gained Sanders knowledge and influence. Thomas may have never been who he was.
Many persons mistake dropping out of school as the end of learning and that simply is not true. By the eighth grade though unless a person is college bound they likely have acquired most of the basic PRACTICAL knowledge that our education system can provide that they will actually need anyway. There needs to be some practical, realistic, & suitable alternatives to three R's high school. That alone would lower the drop out rate considerably in itself.
About a year ago I found out my Father never finished High School. He's 88 and he never mentioned it.
That being said, he served in the U.S. Navy in WWII. He went to Trade School on the G.I. Bill after the War and started an Automotive Repair Business with his Brother. He raised a Family and had many jobs in the Automotive field after he sold the business. He Retired when he was 75 or so.
An Education is only as good as the person who achieved it.
About a year ago I found out my Father never finished High School. He's 88 and he never mentioned it.
That being said, he served in the U.S. Navy in WWII. He went to Trade School on the G.I. Bill after the War and started an Automotive Repair Business with his Brother. He raised a Family and had many jobs in the Automotive field after he sold the business. He Retired when he was 75 or so.
An Education is only as good as the person who achieved it.
A few years ago, I was talking to the retiring high school principal of my local district.
When asked what the biggest mistake he saw during his many years running the school, he said that moving the dropout age to 18 was the worst.
His view was that many kids dropped out at 16 and experienced just how bad life would be for them before they reached adulthood. More than half came back to school and studied with renewed vigor and usually graduated. Another group would come back and request transcripts so they could start GED programs. He figured that less than 20 percent of dropouts never got a degree.
Once they couldn’t drop out at 16, they would spend two destructive years in school, usually truant, and racking up suspensions and expulsions when they were forced to attend. Once they reached 18, they still dropped out and the number of former students who got diplomas was far smaller. Dropouts were gone and often heading down a very bad path.
Ooops sorry about that.. LOL.
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