As reality sets in, Kentucky’s new mandatory Age 18 dropout law gets interesting

If you currently are a 16- or 17-year old dropout in Kentucky, you are going to be forced back into school.

This news comes from an interesting Herald-Leader story that ran yesterday about what is happening as Kentucky’s new mandatory minimum dropout age of 18 takes effect.

Per the Herald-Leader, both the school districts and the court system are sending out notices to 16- and 17-year old dropouts that they have to register and show up when school begins again in August. There is no grandfathering clause in recent legislation that moved the minimum age in Kentucky to 18.And, like lots of legislation built around coercion, the best intentions may result in unintended consequences.

Before getting further into this discussion, I want to make it very clear: I am very concerned about high school dropouts and have been for decades. Students who don’t complete their education – especially in today’s economy – face rather dismal prospects for a happy life as an adult. In many cases, absence of a high school diploma or GED causes automatic rejection for a job applicant, even for many less demanding occupations. Even in special situations (Example: bullying that a school consistently ignores), dropping out is a serious mistake with major consequences. Kids almost always face very sad lives as a consequence.

However, forcing people to do something they don’t want to do can create problems. Sometimes there are very serious – perhaps even violent – consequences with this sort of approach. We could be lighting the fuse on a stick of dynamite by forcing – not enticing – kids back into school.

Ideally, our schools should maintain good order that prevents things like bullying while offering a variety of programs that entice foundering students to stay in school to productively finish their education. Clearly, as dropout numbers attest, that has not happened in enough cases up until now.

But, do we have enough effective alternative programs – and room in them – to serve forced back students well?

Districts have been working for some time to improve alternative programs for kids who don’t seem to be succeeding in mainline school programs. I suspect that many of those programs were already in place just a year or so ago when the teens we are talking about decided to leave school. If the existing programs didn’t entice them to stay in school just one or two years ago, will they work better now? Are enough new and different alternative programs coming on line to change the situation?

If we don’t entice these corralled students to reenergize their education, all we are doing is setting up a sort of incarceration program, and that could lead to problems.

There may be more issues from this new law. The Herald-Leader’s article says:“…under the new law, Kentucky adult education programs cannot serve dropouts who are younger than 18.”So, exiting dropouts no longer can go into the GED program. They must go back into the public school system. Now, if a student really isn’t succeeding in the public schools, he or she still must remain there until their 18th birthday unless they transfer to a private school or a home school.

Which brings up another issue: The idea that a student and parent can game the new system with a fake a transfer to homeschool is also getting more scrutiny. The article reports:

“Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday said in February that the state was going to start tracking high school students who withdraw to attend home school to make sure they aren't just dropping out.”

That might help prevent gaming. However, it also means more intrusion from the state into legitimate home schools, as well. That could create some unintended consequences for everyone (home school parents get VERY involved politically and legislators know it).

BIPPS has a history of concern about dropouts

For anyone who doubts our concerns at the Bluegrass Institute about high school dropouts and inadequate graduation rates, consider these facts:

Even before the institute came along, I was one of the first in Kentucky to point out that the state’s old graduation rate and dropout rate statistics from the early days of KERA were unreliable and hid some very large dropout numbers. Furthermore, my very first legislative testimony after joining the Bluegrass Institute in 2003 was to the Kentucky legislature’s Program Review and Investigations Subcommittee (PR&I) about the evidence of obvious defects in Kentucky’s graduation and dropout rate reporting. This was a launch issue for the institute.

Following my testimony to PR&I, the committee voted to request an audit of the validity of Kentucky’s graduation rate and dropout rate reporting. An audit completed in 2006 substantiated my concerns that the official numbers seriously under-represented the true seriousness of the situation. You can read that audit report here.

In any event, as I recently wrote here, we still need to be wary about Kentucky’s graduation rates, because it won’t really do us much good if the kids recalled to school wind up with a diploma that really doesn’t mean very much. If that happens, they might be socially promoted graduates, but they will still only have about the same education as a dropout. And, ever more savvy employers will know it.