In response to high dropout rates, the education bureaucracy has done everything from playing mix-and-match with curricula to reorganizing graduation requirements and end-of-course tests. Unsure of the effect of this creativity, decision makers are sure that raising the compulsory attendance age will fix the problem. Education analyst, Terry Stoops, debunks this myth. His report on the issue landed him a spot on the State Policy Networks’ main page. Organizations sympathetic to Terry’s line of thought have grabbed a hold of the issue; New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation, which may or may not exist (still trying to figure this one out), found interest in a report Terry did for Oklahoma that modified his Spotlight on compulsory attendance.   A bar definitely worth raising is the arbitrary one set by the state legislature on charter schools. This issue has been festering in the public for quite some time; but recent favorable action taken by the legislature has forced some opponents to speak out. The N.C. Center for Public Policy Research went to extraordinary lengths to mark charters’ as questionable, if not dangerous, educational experiments.  Terry responded to the report on the Locker Room, while Lindalyn Kakadelis did so on the air with Lockwood Phillips. She also used this time to lament the lack of rigor on the State Writing test.  At a Republican Leadership Conference, Terry spoke in defense of charter schools, claiming that the report was not comprehensive, but merely  “a lengthy rehashing of ill-informed charges against charter schools.” Bing. Round One over by TKO.