Diverse Issues in Higher Education
March 12, 2012
Obama Plan to Raise
Dropout Age Draws Mixed Reviews
by Charles Dervarics
President Obama’s
call to keep high school students in school until graduation or age 18 may
support his college completion goals but is not, by itself, a cure-all to the
high school dropout problem, analysts say.
“It’s a proposal that already
intrigues many states,” said Jennifer Dounay Zinth, senior policy analyst for
the Education Commission of the States. “But it will have a marginal effect on
its own,” she told Diverse, adding that it may succeed only if states and
schools can “make school more meaningful for students.”
In his annual State
of the Union address, the president said no state should allow students to leave
school at age 16 or 17, prior to high school graduation. More than half of the
states permit students to leave school before age 18, before they would earn a
diploma.
“When students are not allowed to drop out, they do better,” Obama
said. “We also know that, when students don’t walk away from their education,
more of them walk the stage to get their diploma.”
The dropout issue is
particularly acute for students of color, based on data from the National
Council of State Legislatures. Among all U.S. youth in 2008, 18 percent of
Hispanics, 15 percent of American Indians and 10 percent of African-Americans
were not attending high school and did not have a high school credential, the
council says. The corresponding rate for White and Asian youths was less than 5
percent.
But even in states with age 18 compulsory attendance laws, it is
difficult to enforce the policy, according to Zinth. “It’s not a silver bullet,
though it could have some impact,” she said.
Yet states can take other steps
to stem the tide of dropouts, she said. In at least three states, districts with
low high school graduation rates must submit to state intervention and a
collaborative process to develop effective strategies to keep students in
school.
However, only 21 states formally require students to stay in school
until age 18 or high school graduation, she said.
While it is unlikely the
president would ask Congress to require states to raise the age of compulsory
school attendance, some analysts said Obama is using the presidential “bully
pulpit” to seek changes at a time when bipartisan consensus is elusive on K-12
policy at the national level.
For example, Obama’s plan comes as the White
House and Congress have been unable to agree on changes to the No Child Left
Behind Act, said Antonio Flores, president of the Hispanic Association of
Colleges and Universities. He noted that the age-18 proposal is one way for the
president to lobby for changes that don’t require congressional
approval.
“It’s critical that we look at K-12 more closely,” Flores told
Diverse. “But I don’t know that there is the political will in Washington to do
that.”
Requiring students to stay in high school until age 18 also may
improve their job prospects, since high school dropouts are less likely to have
skills desired by employers, he said. “It can help the economy in general,” he
added, and the plan fits with administration commitments to focus on careers and
job training. In his address, the president also called for a more streamlined
job training system to help move the unemployed into stable jobs.
Even if
more states prevent more 16- and 17-year-olds from dropping out of school, other
K-12 challenges remain—including inequity in resources between low-income and
more affluent schools, Flores noted.
Nonetheless, the White House proposal
fits with the administration’s stated goals to increase the number of young
Americans with college degrees, said Laura Bornfreund, senior education policy
analyst at the New America Foundation.
“The administration has been focusing
on the number of students going on to some type of higher education,” she said,
and stemming the tide of dropouts promotes that goal.
Nonetheless, it’s not
clear whether the administration would—or could—take action to force states to
raise the compulsory attendance age. Despite the high-profile comments in the
State of the Union address, the president “hasn’t announced anything the federal
government would be doing” to support that goal, Bornfreund said.
“One of the
easiest things to do is to call on states to increase the time that students
need to stay in school,” she told Diverse. Yet just drawing national attention
to the issue may bring new thinking. Since the speech, lawmakers in several
states have introduced legislation to prevent students under age 18 from
dropping out, Zinth said.
The New Jersey state Senate just approved a bill to
raise the age of compulsory attendance, and states as diverse as Minnesota,
Massachusetts and Kentucky are discussing it. “It seems to be a path that a lot
of states are going down,” she added.
Diverse Issues in Higher Education: Obama Plan to Raise Dropout Age Draws Mixed Reviews
