Mass. panel backs school dropout age of 18
By HOPE E. TREMBLAY
Staff writer
WESTFIELD – A legislative panel last week approved a bill that would require students to stay in school until age 18.
Currently, students can elect to dropout at age 16, with some exceptions for children as young as 14.
State Sen. Michael Knapik (R-Westfield) is a sponsor of the bill and said it is something that is “long overdue.”
“I have sponsored this in the past and supported this based on my constituents,” he said.
Knapik said parents have urged him to support this for many years.
“Parents want this to help keep their kids in school,” said Knapik. “It is not something I hear about a lot in Westfield or Southwick, but I hear it a lot in Holyoke.”
Knapik said raising the age to 18 is a “tool for parents” who want to encourage their children to stay in school.
Gateway Regional Schools Superintendent Dr. David Hopson said he supports the concept of the bill, but believes there is more work to be done before the legislation is passed.
“I think it’s a good idea but it needs to be linked to other supports,” said Hopson. “All too often students are not mature enough to think about how their high school diploma will affect them in the future.”
Hopson said he wrote to the chairman of the joint education committee, as well as local legislators, about the bill.
Hopson said he believes there should be a link between attending school and driver’s licenses and work papers.
“If we believe education is a core, and I think we do, they why shouldn’t that be supported in society and general laws?” Hopson asked.
Knapik said he supports Hopson’s idea to link the school requirement to other things, however, he said he does not think that would pass.
“I agree with David, but I don’t think Massachusetts is that state,” said Knapik. “I don’t think the support is there to do that.”
Gateway Regional High School has an average drop out rate of five percent. Hopson said most of the time, when a student drops out, it is expected.
“Students who are going to drop out are not usually a surprise to guidance counselors or administrators,” he said, adding that the faculty does what it can to adapt school to the needs of a student.
“It doesn’t always work out,” said Hopson.
In speaking with fellow superintendents, Hopson has found mixed feelings about the bill.
“Almost every superintendent I’ve spoken with feels 18 is not a bad way to go, but they feel concerned about the lack of support and they worry it will be an unfunded mandate,” said Hopson.
The education committee’s bill would raise the dropout age in two phases, going to 17 in the 2013-2014 academic year and to 18 the following year. Graduation “coaches” would be hired in many schools to work closely with students judged to be most at risk of dropping out. Schools would also be pushed to find alternatives to suspensions and expulsions because many of those students ultimately drop out.
Hopson said the bill could mean a cut in services across the board because, although legislation often claims to come without a price tag, Hopson said administering programs takes time away from other work.
“The bullying legislation, which is a good law, was supposed to be a no-cost program, but it takes time and it costs money, even though we don’t have a big bullying problem here,” said Hopson. “I don’t want this to become another unfunded mandate.”
During a news conference following last week’s approval of the vote, Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz (D-Boston), who co-chairs the panel, acknowledged that supporters did not have a cost estimate for the bill, but pointed to existing funding mechanisms such as Chapter 70, which provides annual state assistance to public school districts. She said the graduation coaches called for in the bill would be paid for by the state and not the local districts.
Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District Superintendent Dr. John Barry said he, too, is worried the bill could turn into another unfunded mandate.
“I do think it is well-intended,” said Barry.
He said while graduation coaches could help some students, most students already have the help they need if they want it.
“You need a unified front,” he said. “You need parents to help and teachers to help. “
Barry said alternative classrooms, guidance counselors and special educators help keep children in the classroom, but it is already expensive.
“I have a concern that it could become another mandate that’s unfunded,” he said.
Knapik said he, too, does not want another unfunded mandate.
“We already have the homeless busing that is an unfunded mandate,” said Knapik. “As we debate this, we have to make sure there are resources behind it and that the state can afford it. The ways and Means Committee is looking at this and evaluating the cost.”
In addition to raising the dropout age to 18, with no exemptions, the bill advanced by the joint Education Committee contains other proposals to get students “across the finish line to graduation,” said Chang-Diaz.
President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address in January, called on every state to require students to stay in high school until age 18. Twenty-one states have an 18-year-old dropout age, including Rhode Island, where Gov. Lincoln Chafee signed legislation last summer raising the mandatory attendance age from 16.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has expressed support for the higher dropout age. State education officials have noted, however, that the dropout rate among high school students has been declining steadily in recent years. They said the 2011 dropout rate of 2.7 percent was down from 2.9 percent the previous year and the lowest rate in two decades.
Supporters of the higher compulsory attendance age pointed to bleak economic statistics that show high school dropouts are more likely than graduates to be poor, unemployed or wind up in jail.
“To put it quite bluntly, the American dream is dead for America’s high school dropouts,” said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.
The average dropout also will pay on average $500,000 less in taxes over their lifetime and require the most government assistance, Sum said.
Knapik said the dropout age was set at 16 at a time when many students had to leave school to help support their families.
‘That’s just not practical anymore,” he said. “If you go out into the world today without a minimum of a high school diploma, you’re lost.”
Hope E. Tremblay can be reached at [email protected]
