Comments on: Compulsory schooling to age 19?

By: bandit

bandit — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:26:37 +0000

What about their kids?

By: Joanne Jacobs

Joanne Jacobs — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:54:33 +0000

I think the theory is that everyone would go to adult ed, community college or the first year of four-year college to meet the extra-year requirement, not that everyone would have to spend an extra year in high school. Of course, quite a few students are unable to graduate at 18 and need that extra year if they want a diploma. I know a young man who was very close to 20 when he graduated.

By: gbl3rd

gbl3rd — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:27:34 +0000

Would employers or colleges prefer a graduate who had the extra year? Would it reduce the expense of a college degree? If the answers were yes it might be a good idea.

I know there used to be sonething called Prep School where the elites sent there high school graduates for an extra year so they could get into ivy league schools. Does this still happen?

By: allen

allen — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:19:46 +0000

Lightly Seasoned wrote:

> Our drop-out rate is <3% … I wonder why people aren’t flocking to OUR doors to find out what we’re doing.

Enjoy the distinction. You’re among a select group who’ve demonstrated professional excellence and thus been ignored by the balance of the profession.

In the public education system success isn’t easily transplanted which is why idiotic ideas like extending school to age nineteen are constantly being floated.

By: Rex

Rex — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:01:17 +0000

And exactly where will you find the space to house another grade?

By: gbl3rd

gbl3rd — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:53:05 +0000

An extra 30 days would not have to mean an extra month at the end or start of the year, just a extra week plus less vacation days and fewer in service days. I agree it depends on the labor agreements. Maybe we could spend less on “technology”.

I have been led to believe a reason our students don’t measure up is our school year is too short compared to the nations who out perform us. Is this really a source of their advantage?

I have my doubts about how effective an extra year or an extra month would be. Would the kids score 10% higher with a longer school year. What are they going to be able to do at 19 that they cannot do at 18.

I agree with Rex about high school graduation and retention in the armed forces. If they cannot cope with the school bureaucracy how can the handle a military bureaucracy?

By: Lightly Seasoned

Lightly Seasoned — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:22:23 +0000

Our drop-out rate is <3%, but I still don’t think that’s any reason to hold onto them for another year. We do have a number of programs in place to keep that drop-out rate low, but they’re expensive and I wonder if they’ll survive the economy over the next few years. We’re about 70& white, 25% black, 20% impoverished. (Apparently, our staff is also 99% fully certified and our average salary is $39K — no Teach for America, no huge salaries, no uniforms or head shaving — I wonder why people aren’t flocking to OUR doors to find out what we’re doing.).

Extending the school year one month is a LOT of extra cost. How is that free?

By: Margo/Mom

Margo/Mom — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:12:24 +0000

Robert–actually, I wasn’t going there (to the acknowledged correlation, whether causal or not, between those who do not complete and those who are in jail), tempting though it might be. What I was reacting to, in my own mind, is our lack of success in moving the 30-70% (depending on the school, the district and the method of counting) or so who don’t make it to graduation–or even the end of compulsory education with or without a diploma. There is, in fact, some research to support a few interventions (it’s one of the areas where looking at What Works is actually helpful). The interventions far more frequently offered, however, when interventions are offered, or suggested, tend to rest far more heavily on punishment (yes–that means sending to jail) for parents who have failed at ensuring that the body is present–whether the mind is engaged or not. The logical follow-up to this thinking then, when it comes to moving the compulsory age beyond that at which a parent can be assumed (legally) to be responsible for the actions of offspring, would be to jail those who break the law by not attending.

So, the logic would be–breaking the law causes incarceration. But–I wasn’t advocating that we go there, just following the logic of those who are.

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:07:35 +0000

Cal. Why would it have made the papers? Kids flunk. Kids fail to graduate. It doesn’t make the papers. Some of them are not from low SOE classes. It doesn’t make the papers.
My wife’s students, three or four of them, who are not going to graduate because they don’t do the work are different from those who quite literally can’t. The former don’t turn in their work and get no better than random on machine-scored tests if they bother to complete them.
My friend knows some of the families from whom the non-grads come. They are not poor and the daughter tells him the kids simply don’t do the work. Skip school. Don’t study. Take a half a shot at a test at best.
Question is, what are you going to do with these kids if you force them back to school next year?

By: gbl3rd

gbl3rd — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:44:28 +0000

Extending the current school year by 1 month would give thme an extra year for students now beginning the first grade. No extra cost.

Unfotunately, in too many schools, what we do now in school is not working well. Why would extending it help?