Orange County school board members are frustrated by the county’s high school dropout rate. Understandable.
However, the resolution the board passed last week is unlikely to help solve the problem. Board members are now on record supporting efforts by some to increase North Carolina’s compulsory attendance age from 16 to 18 years old.
No doubt the members’ intentions are good. Problem is, other states have already gone down this road and the results aren’t good.
Locke Foundation Education Policy Analyst Terry Stoops analyzed the data on compulsory attendance and wrote about it here. This is his summary of the situation detailed in his May 2007 report:
North Carolina is among the 26 states that have a maximum compulsory age of 16.
Among the 50 states and D.C., there is no consistent relationship between the maximum compulsory age and graduation and dropout rates.
States with a compulsory attendance age of 16 have higher average and median graduation rates than states with compulsory attendance ages of 17 and 18. States with a compulsory attendance age of 16 have average and median dropout rates comparable to states with compulsory attendance ages of 17 and 18.
There is no consistent relationship between compulsory attendance ages and graduation rates among industrialized nations. Students in countries with a maximum compulsory attendance that is lower than the United States often graduate at a higher rate than students in the United States do.
Raising the compulsory attendance age to 17 would cost North Carolina taxpayers approximately $8.8 million a year for the estimated 942 students affected by the legislation.
School systems and law enforcement officials must begin earnestly enforcing existing truancy laws for public school students who have not reached 16 years of age but are chronically absent from school.
