Taking liberty to the airwaves: BIPPS debates age-18 proposal on 'Ky Tonight'

Tune in to Kentucky Educational Television on Monday night as Bluegrass Institute education analyst Richard Innes makes his statewide "Kentucky Tonight" debut live at 8 p.m. (eastern).

Monday's show features a debate about whether politicians should force the commonwealth's high-schoolers to remain in school until age 18.

Innes estimates that forcing an "age 18" policy as required by House Bill 216 would result in more than $166 million in unfunded additional operations costs to taxpayers.

Moreover, his estimate does not include potentially very large additional costs of facilities expansions and the costs of adding more teachers into state-funded health care and retirement systems. More facilities and teachers will be needed to serve the additional thousands of students forced to remain in seats in Kentucky's public schools.

Another bill, Senate Bill 109 would leave dropout-age decisions up to local boards of education but could eventually result in similar, very high added costs.

A key issue is that raising the dropout age minimum to 18 has not worked in many states that have extended experience with this policy, as we have blogged about in the past.

Joining Innes on the program will be Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday, state Rep. Jeff Greer, D-Brandenburg, and Sen. David Givens, R-Greensburg.

The Emmy Award-winning public affairs show is hosted by Bill Goodman. It is repeated on Mondays at midnight, Tuesdays at 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. and Wednesdays at 2 a.m. and 5 a.m.