Drafted to School

The Gazette has a recent editorial supporting Governor Granholm's plan to mandate school attendance until age 18. Raise mandatory school attendance age

Proponents of this plan point out that people who graduate from high school do much better in life than those who don't. This is certainly true, but once again, correlation is not causation. Smarter, more dedicated people are more likely to both graduate and succeed in life.

Is everyone capable of graduating from high school? We'd like to think so, but is it so? See this article.

How is this requirement supposed to be enforced? If teens don't go to school, will the police drag them there? Every day? Is that the best use of their time?

And what will happen when they get there? How will people who don't want to be in school act? Most likely, they will be disruptive. This will hurt the other students, preventing them from getting the education that they want.

Of course, there's no evidence that this policy would work. From an email from Jack Hoogendyk:

It is no guarantee that kids will stay in school and graduate asGovernor Granholm suggests. Increasing the compulsory attendance agewill not reduce the dropout rate. In fact, the two states with thebest high school completion rates, Maryland at 94.5% and North Dakotaat 94.7%, compel attendance only to age 16. The state with the lowestcompletion rate (Oregon: 75.4%) compels attendance to age 18. (Figuresare three-year averages, 1996 through 1998.)

So why advocate this policy? Well, who benefits? The more kids who get roped into government schools, the more government school teachers, the more dues for the teachers union, and the more campaign contributions to democrats like Governor Granholm.