By TIERRA HAYES – Staff Writer
It is already over before it begins. He sleeps through class, waiting for the school day to end. It is his last day of school. He is 16 years old.
According to gpee.org, the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education’s website, Georgia’s most recent graduation rate is 67.4 percent.
Where are our other 33.6 percent of students?
A portion of this number is made up of kids who completed four years of high school and failed to make graduation requirements, but many may never have continued past their second year.
Georgia’s compulsory education code, along similar laws in 26 other states, states “Mandatory attendance in a public school, private school, or home school program shall be required for children between their sixth and sixteenth birthdays.”
Only 15 states and the District of Columbia have raised their standards to ensure mandatory education to the age of 18.
At 16 years of age, one is not old enough to make a decision that may negatively affect a lifetime. Especially in today’s society, students who drop out of school are drastically limiting their options in life. Even for the minimum, many low-wage jobs require a high school diploma. To drop out is to set oneself up for failure.
In a survey taken by the U.S. Census Bureau from 2008 to 2011, people who do not complete high school earn thousands of dollars less annually when compared with high school graduates and are among the highest percentages of the unemployed.
Setting the dropout age higher gives students more exposure to a learning environment. Without the option to get out of school early, more students may be willing to put an effort into school if they must spend four years of their lives there. Even if they decide to not attend school, the legal repercussions would be much greater than denying them drivers licenses.
Also, if the people making the laws project a sense of negligence through their legislation about whether or not students are required to go to school, why should a student feel obligated?
One lawmaker, however, did take a stand.
In 2012, State Representative Rashad Taylor (D) fought to raise the legal age at which one can drop out to 17 years of age.
“We must send a message to our young people that the state of Georgia will not give up on them at 16 years old,” said Rep. Taylor in an excerpt of his plea to deter dropouts published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Granted not all students who leave school do so without a valid reason. Many have family situations or living arrangements that are not conducive to an 8:45 am to 3:25 pm schedule.
Regardless, these are still not strong enough arguments to leave traditional school.
There are many local alternatives to a normal education. Programs such as Classic City High School and Ombudsman hold non-conventional hours and curriculums to ensure students get their high school diploma. If even these programs do not exactly meet the needs of students, the school board must be willing to fight for these students, even if no one else will.
“It’s interesting that the more and more you work with young men and young women you find that if you’re supporting and mentoring them in a way that they see that this education is valuable, even if at one point they had considered dropping out, then they continue to stick it out and remain here to get their high school diploma,” Associate Principal Marie Yuran said. “Certainly from a legal perspective we would be able to chase people down and compel them to come (if the dropout age was higher.)”
At the end of the day the lawmakers should be able to say that they fought as hard as humanly possible to keep students in school, no matter the cost.
Because if the futures of students don’t matter, what does?
