Michigan Votes Forum

After reading the text and analysis of this bill, and understanding that a child who reaches the age of 16 and has parental permission to leave school may still do so, I still am against this bill. The answer to the school drop-out rate has little to do with compulsory attendance, as we see by examining stats from other states that have the best and worst graduation rates as compared to their compulsory attendance law.  If a teenager doesn't want to be educated in a particular setting, no amount of compulsion will educate that child.  He or she will become a liability to the school by being disruptive or apathetic in the classroom, and an economic liability to the state. This isn't a good use of state money, especially now.

 This bill is just an attempt to put another bandage on a gaping wound.  Humans actually want to learn.  High dropout rates are created by bad schools that fail to fulfill the needs of their customers.  The only real solution is to allow true competition in the education market place and let failing schools fail.

This bill appears to be a response to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which idiotically uses high school graduation and dropout rates to appraise school success and quality.

Dropout rates are a poor measure of school quality or performance. They far more likely reflect family structures and values prevalent in the community.  Where strong families that value education overwhelmingly predominate, dropout rates are likely to be low.  When the opposite community condition exists, dropout rates are likely to be high.  Read the legislative analysis of this bill to see evidence of that phenomenon.

Michigan kids now can drop out of school at age 16 with parental permission.  So the quick fix appoears to lie in increasing the compulsory attendance age to 18, which is the age at which most who graduate will graduate.

Of course, that will fix nothing.  It will not upgrade or improve schools, and well may make them worse as we compel attendance by more and more poorly motivated students.

The argument that increasing high school graduation rates is beneficial to society has been well tested for nearly 50 years. 

A grand experiment started when social scientists recognized a correlation between lack of a high school diploma and long term dependence on the welfare system.  If more people were to graduate from high school (receive diplomas), it was reasoned, welfare dependence would decrease. 

Thus began the great dilution of academic standards, and devlauation of high school (and later, college) diplomas.  Whether by conscious intent or not, the accepted way to keep people in school and bound for graduation soon evolved into making it easier.  Only recently – within the last 10-15 years -- have we begun to acknowledge and address that situation with any serious intent of reversal.

HB 4030 is just another proposal to continue a failed experiment.  It is a step backward, not forward, and should be rejected.

 well well... more things we agree upon.

will wonders never cease. next thing you know, you'll be advocating private schools.

This bill would have allowed crazy to finish 8th grade. But I agree, he shouldn't be forced to.

 crazy finished high school, a good bit of college, the police academy. several firearms instructor schools, an electronics seminar or twelve, and continuing education in the business world.

what's YOUR educational level?

don't tell me you have several degrees from michigan state....

crazycajun:

 crazy finished high school, a good bit of college, the police academy. several firearms instructor schools, an electronics seminar or twelve, and continuing education in the business world.

But crazy never managed to extract an education from all that "schooling."

He makes that patently obvious every time he signs on here.

Have a nice day in your twisted little LaLa Land, crazy. 

 so whys shouldn't we have forced you to stay in high school till you were 18 instead of kicking you out at 16?

 perhaps it's time that the government ended the failed experiment that is public education and quit spending billions of our tax dollars to fund that failed experiment.

that would end the budget crisis today. problem solved.