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US: Law would force 16- and 17-year-olds to stay in school

If a Springfield school board member gets her way, the law could get a lot tougher on teens who want to drop out of high school.

Board member Debbie Tolliver supports creating legislation to raise the state's legal dropout age from 16 to 18. She hopes other school boards will endorse the idea.

"The purpose is so they can get a diploma," said Tolliver, who has served on several district dropout committees. "I really don't think ... a 16-year-old realizes when they drop out that the decision has lifelong implications."

Tolliver recently told the Springfield school board that that laws ought to penalize students rather than schools. She also wants the state to start a conversation on ways to get tough on dropouts.

To give the compulsory attendance laws some teeth, she said, pass laws that take away the driving privileges and forbid the employment of teens who have dropped out.

The proposal to raise the legal dropout age is still in the talking stages. In an effort to raise interest, Tolliver will seek to have it debated at the October assembly of the Missouri School Boards Association. If supported there, it would have a better chance at gaining support in the Missouri Legislature.

A number of states have raised the age of compulsory attendance in recent years.

Mary Reimer, information specialist for the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University, said results have been mixed.

"There is some research that says if you have kids who have one foot in and one foot out of school, it (raising the compulsory attendance age) will affect them," Reimer said. "More states are moving that way because it looks like an easy fix. But kids still drop out before 18."

Resident Meranda Lee, 25, dropped out of Central High School when she was 17; her husband dropped out of another area high school.

She said students who have had it with the system will figure out a way to drop out, regardless of the legal dropout age.

Lee, who hopes to earn her GED, said she became discouraged after officials "lost" some transfer credits from another school.

Schools must connect better with students and not throw obstacles in their way, she said.

"What would have made a difference with me?" Lee said. "If certain teachers wouldn't have had favorite students - if they wouldn't have favored the 'high-classy' ones over the lower-class students."

Kristen Westerman, the manager of work force and business development with the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, said she is interested to see how the dropout discussion develops.

In 2004, the chamber promoted something called "The Employer's Promise," a pledge businesses signed to only hire people with a high school diploma or GED. But by 2005, the effort had ended, said Westerman.

"With community input, we decided that this process was not the best route," Westerman said. "Some people thought it was discriminatory to say, 'We won't hire you unless you have a diploma.' What we thought was best was to go hire these applicants and help them receive their diploma or GED."

At this time there is no formal pledge that employers are asked to sign to help dropouts get a diploma or GED, Westerman said.

Posted by: SoulRiser
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Posted in: News on September 2, 2006 @ 12:00 AM

Tags: School

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