“Look, this is one of the things that just strikes me as another anachronistic holdover, that you can make a decision to drop out at 16, but you can’t make a decision to have a drink at 16 or to enlist in the armed forces or to vote,” Patrick said later that day.
First of all, if Deval’s on an anachronism-killing kick, how bout ending daylight savings time? I’m no farmer, and I don’t want to have the sun blazing into my bedroom at 6 in the morning next week, and setting before I leave work in the evening. Secondly, is Deval considering lowering the drinking age to 18? And you though MIT & UMass were zoos now…
As the article later mentions, most states set the age at which students can quit school at 16, though 15 states and DC have raised it to 18. I’m curious as to others’ reactions to this idea, and I’ve listed the main arguments (as I see them) below.
Pro: Never say that it’s too late. Assuming that public or charter (that was for you, GGW) education is still the best route to social mobility, we want students to have every chance to latch on to that route when ready.
Something may happen to a student who would have dropped out at 16 during those 2 additional years they must remain. Perhaps they mature, they find the right school or teacher, stability at home, a new home, or other factors. So when a student is ready to buy in, s/he’s in the right place to do so. With the right support structure to help these at-risk students, we can save money and time in the long run by taking advantage of these opportunities rather than making up for it with other government services.
Additionally, many students are still undergoing cognitive development at 16, and something may finally “click” between 16 and 18 that makes school easier. Regardless, this may also have effects on students 14 and 15 who are currently trying to run out the clock: knowing they have a few years left may get them motivated again.
Con: All the “mays” and “coulds” show that many students will not change their attitude from 16 to 18. Now, older, bigger students who do not want to be in school will be in the classroom again, disrupting things for those who do want to learn. Their influence can drag down classmates, and can be a safety issue. There is little reason to hope that these at-risk students will receive support, and increasing disruptive student populations with no matching increase in support sets up more students, classes, schools, and teachers for failure. For those who have a change of heart at 17 or 18, there’s always the GED.
What say you?
Sorry, I just got hung up on that daylight savings time analysis. I think you have it backwards: The sun won’t be blazing in your window next week when you don’t want to wake up; it will be dark in the mornign like it was in January. And the sun won’t set before you come home next week; it will be light for an additional hour. Whether you are or anr not a farmer.
I’m thrilled that I was wrong. I like it dark in the morning — if I’m not awake, why should the sun be up? Something to look forward this Monday morning, I guess.
Should we be surprised that things he talked about or wanted to consider are being acted upon?
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I could see you bitcing about “hiring cops” becoming “when we can.” Maybe a little, anyway.
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But what irks you about him saying during a campaign that he would “consider” something and now that he’s governor he’s actively supporting it? Isn’t he supposed to make up him mind on this stuff after a period of consideration? And then do someting about it?
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I may be wrong, but it feels like you’re proposing it’s a negative thing. But on none of the three issues you cited can it be said he changed his position. At worst, one is delayed by budget constraints.
I guess it depends on where you assign the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps Deval found time for considered studies of education and law enforcement in between lurching from mistake to mistake and putting together a budget. Equally likely is that he had an unpopular opinion, and bobbed and weaved until safely elected. This is particularly true on casinos, a complex issue with many sides that Deval discovered an opinion on immediately after election that he shared before talking with any parties who could be involved. As for the truancy change, my gut is that there was pressure on him to say something important when marking David Driscoll’s official departure, so they went with this. It seems awfully like yet another trial balloon.
The election was more than four months ago. You don’t think he looked into a few things in that time?
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The cops seems clearly a budget thing. Give him more money and I’m pretty sure he’d hire more cops. Do you honestly think not or are you just trying to be a wedge?
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I thought it was known that he was at least leaning toward going a bit down the road on casinos. Has he been pushig hard to do them for sure? Maybe he has and I’ve missed it. Definitely possible.
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The drop out thing seems like something you could do a quick study on. No offense to the education policy wonks.
We move the clocks an hour ahead… meaning 2 am becomes 3 am.
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It also means that 6 am becomes 7 am… i.e. if the sun came up at 6, it would now come up at 7 – an hour later.
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And 6 pm becomes 7 pm. Meaning if the sun went down at 6 before, it will now go down at 7. Again, an hour later.
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And I agree with notemie on the rest. I don’t see why its a bad thing to consider something and then decide to support it. Are you forever stuck in the ‘considering’ phase? Did you think ‘considering’ was a politicians word for ‘no way’ (probably usually is)? If so the goal was to elect someone who was different, remember?
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There’s a lot of tradeoffs that needed to be made, and legions of new cops simple wasn’t possible with a $1 billion budget deficit coming up – its good that he started along that road period. I really don’t understand your complaints.
Does any one know how such a change in laws would affect people who graduate at 16 or 17? I’ve only known a handful a 17 year old and only one 16-yr old college freshman, but I’ve never understood how these relate to whether someone can drop out.
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I’d love to get rid of standard time and switch to daylight savings pernamently. We should be in the Atlantic time zone here anyway. Though England is thinking of switching to Western Europe time while Wales and Scotland will stay in GMT, which has clear confusion causing symptoms, and I’ve spent enough time in Indiana (three days) to get how confusing time zone gradients can be.
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and finally, I keep hearing about the 1000 cops as the standard “Deval’s broken promises” (though it’s the only one ever mentioned, the rest are implied), as if it was the focus of his entire campaign, but personally I never heard about it until late November or December, and thought it was a transition period idea. And it doesn’t even seem accurate, as 250 new cops this year puts him right on track to pull it off.
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Thanks bud.
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While I agree with commenter above – not sure that you have a real “policy surprise” beef here, or at least not a big one – I think you laid out pro and con well. Glad you raised it. What’s your take?
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What has happened in the other 15 states? DC has something like a 40% graduation rate, so did they just pass the policy, or is it a policy with no teeth?
It wasn’t in the article, and I haven’t looked for data yet.
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It strikes me that raising the age is treating the symptom of drop-outs rather than finding out the cause/s (like the idea of banning abortion rather than figuring out why there are so many unwanted pregnancies).
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To paraphrase one legislator, if the solution was so simple and obvious as raising the age, wouldn’t we have done it a long time ago?
wouldn’t Congress have done it decades ago?
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Yet, they didn’t, and it remains the single most popular piece of legislation signed by President Bush.
Come now, it was pressure from direct marketers that kept that in limbo so long. Who makes money off of high-school dropouts?
Problems with the analysis aside, this policy change is nothing but a smoke screen for Deval to appear to be doing something while not spending any money.
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From the Mass DOE site,
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Only 3.8 percent of students are dropping out, 11,145 students. And we are below the national average. To top that off, we are already below the four states the Globe article pointed out with dropout ages of 18, New Hampshire (5.4), New Mexico (5.3), Arizona (10.9), and South Dakota (3.9).
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This was purely a political move for Deval to appear to do something while not spending any money.
JK, I could totally see how the 3.8% number would throw you off, and I don’t have time to fully explain.
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But here’s reality:
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Follow the link – lots of good data.
Could you please explain the difference in drop out rate and graduation rate and why one is a better indicator?
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I read the link and some other info on the DOE site and I am a little confused by which is better and why. Some of the sources go back an forth.
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Thanks
Gotcha. Imagine 100 kids start 9th grade. 96 start 10th grade (4% dropout).
92 start 11th grade. 88 start 12th grade. 84 graduate.
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Throw in some kids who are held back for a year before dropping out, and you have the 80% statewide graduation rate.
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More if you’d like
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The average person sees “4%” and thinks “Not too bad.” Then you see 20% and think “Bad.” Then you see Hispanic and black graduation rates and think “Really bad.”
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By the way, many graduation rate experts believe the MA numbers are actually worse than the DOE calculations.
I haven’t had time to check out the new link yet but I will.
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You explaination was help full but what happens to the kids that graduate in more then 4 years? I am sure this is a small number but just curious about how those get accounted for (considering I was one of those in high school).
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Thanks again.
on whether the state promotes its “on-time graduation rate” (4 year) or its “overall graduation rate” (which includes the 5-year students and even a few 6-year students). i’m not sure which MA uses for its 80% number. scholars use 3 or 4 different methodologies.
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i think No Child Left Behind tried to standardize, to get states to use the 4-year rate. now the National Gov’s Association is trying to push this along.
If students just aren’t going to school and aren’t doing the work and aren’t passing classes, keeping them there isn’t going to suddenly change it.
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I think I know 2 people who dropped out of high school, one of them needed to go through a really bad “angst” phase… but eventually got it together. She finished her master’s program as the head of her program.
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The other one still hasn’t gotten her GED, but is still relatively young and hopefully will. However, she certainly has improved as a person nonetheless.
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Anecdotal? Of course. I just think this is one of those cases where Einstein’s definition of insanity applies: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Just forcing people to go to school isn’t necessarily going to help most of them. For people struggling that poorly, there has to be something radically different about the way you continue to educate them if they’re forced to be there. Maybe a different environment? Different subjects? Different hours? I don’t know, but something.
if it’s to go to college early, who cares?
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if it’s to work to support the family or to give birth, then forcing them to stay in school wihtout providing wage compansation or day care will just be trading one disaster for another.
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if it’s due to fear of violence, there’s no sense in it unless the violence is quashed.
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i’m sure there are other legit reasons as well.
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it is a nice idea for all kids to stay in school until 18, but there are real reasons why some leave early. just upping the truancy age without addressing the reasons for truancy won’t solve anything except maybe for the truly lazy drop-out.
…the proposal to turn schools into taxpayer-financed daycare centers by extending the school day.
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As far as I can tell, the basic problem with the US education system is that it does not provide students with enough choices. As I’ve noted elsewhere here, in Germany there are a variety of choices that students can take. I mentioned the apprenticeship programs, but there are also other types of programs that aren’t apprenticeship, but which would allow a student to have a job skill after leaving high school (ref. “Realschule”) and without having to go to college.
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The US educational system, particularly at the high-school level, appears to be mostly geared to college prep, not to providing job skills. That may be one reason why people drop out of high school–they aren’t likely to go to college, and they aren’t getting job skills in their high schools. So, they may figure, why should they waste their time attending high school?