The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions

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Utah legislator: Compulsory attendance moves in the wrong direction

As the Kentucky Department of Education congratulates itself on moving the state to a mandatory minimum high school dropout age of 18, a Utah legislator makes some interesting comments about how a move in a different direction might actually work better.

I’m not ready to declare Utah’s Sen. Aaron Osmond is right, but I did some research that shows moving to an Age 18 policy without putting in a lot of extra student supports won’t fix our high school dropout problem.

Without such supports, all the new rules will do is change 16-year old dropouts into possibly far more disruptive 18-year old ones.