Obama's Drop-Out Proposal Won't Make Kids Learn (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | During his State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama called on states to pass laws requiring that children remain in school until age 18. According to Chris Moody's posting in The Ticket, Obama was using his "bully pulpit" to tell local school districts how to do their jobs. It offended some Republicans, Moody writes, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who had to fight the urge to become this year's Joe Wilson.

I don't find Obama's desire to see children stay in school offensive so much as I find his suggestion as to how to do this poorly thought out. It's one of those things that sounds nice when you say it, but you realize upon further consideration that it just won't work. At first blush: Local school districts, at least the ones in my home state of Colorado, would have an incentive to do this as they get revenue for the state based upon how many students are enrolled. Fewer dropouts, bigger enrollment.

The Obama Administration could spice up the offer a little from the federal side too, tying education funding for states to the requirement that each state pass a law mandating attendance until age 18. It actually wouldn't shock me, having seen the feverish intensity by which my state's department of education and others were willing to modify state laws in order to pursue multi-million dollar "Race to the Top" federal grants. In fact, the suggestion that states do this may have been more of a sign of things to come than merely a suggestion.

But it still won't work. First of all, how is it going to be enforced? And who is going to enforce it? Are you going to put a bunch of 16- and 17-year-olds in jail if they don't go to school? Are you going to put their parents in jail for having truant children? (As hideous as I find it, some states and districts already have truancy laws calling to do exactly this.)

So, say you force most, but not all, students to stay in school until age 18. What then? Are they going to want to learn? A lot of them don't want to learn now. Instead, as Phil Gingrey of Georgia stated in Moody's post, they go to school when they feel like it and disrupt the other kids in class.

There are certainly things that could promote kids staying in school until 18. I think more could be done in the arena of school-to-work or trade school cooperatives that put practical application to what kids learn, making that learning more engaging and meaningful. But attempting to force someone to stay in school when they are determined not to be there doesn't seem to be the most logical solution ever suggested. Especially not for the kids who do want to be there.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120127/pl_ac/10890127_obamas_dropout_proposal_wont_make_kids_learn

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