School choice proponents received a breath of fresh air recently from a lawmaker speaking on the issue of compulsory school attendance.

Unfortunately, that lawmaker doesn't serve the Bluegrass State.

Last week, Utah state senator Aaron Osmond spoke out against his state's compulsory attendance laws, putting much of the blame on this mandate for public schools' inefficiencies and unacceptable student performance. As Osmond noted, until the 20th century, a primary education was viewed as a privilege, not a prison sentence - and teachers were viewed as highly respected education professionals aiding in the parents' ultimate responsibility of raising their children right.

Osmond continued:

“As a result [of compulsory education laws], our teachers and schools have been forced to become surrogate parents, expected to do everything from behavioral counseling, to providing adequate nutrition, to teaching sex education, as well as ensuring full college and career readiness."

This gutsy statement from the first-term lawmaker comes fresh on the heels of Kentucky Senate Bill 96 which - now that 55% of schools in the commonwealth have signed on - forces students in any school district in the commonwealth to attend school until age 18. The obvious costs that will result are those associated with the hiring of more teachers, procuring new text books and resources, and the classroom costs of attempting to force a traditional education on students who'd strongly prefer to be elsewhere.

However, the more subtle costs are what will hurt young people most - and those are associated with the lost wages and on-the-job experience these teenagers could have received outside the classroom.