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"...While GSCS supports the spirit of A375, we fear the bill will have unintended financial consequences for the state and for local school districts...We also note that a fiscal note has not been completed on this proposed legislation…" Star Ledger editorial 'Wrong strategy on dropout 10-28-08 "A proposal to raise the legal age for leaving school from 16 to 18 is a well-intentioned mistake being pushed through many state legislatures, including New Jersey's..."
Testimony for the Assembly Appropriations Committee
Re: A 375 (Formerly A3815)
October 23, 2008
The Garden State Coalition of Schools joins the Legislature in its concern that all students complete a high school education and graduate successfully into the world of higher education and / or employment. While we support the spirit of A375, we fear the bill will have unintended financial consequences for the state and for local school districts, perhaps resulting in an unfunded mandate.
• Raising the legally allowable age that a student may leave school from 16 years to 18 years may require a stronger truancy program and more employees staffing it than is currently necessary in some school districts, resulting in higher local costs. Those with a currently high drop out rate would be particularly hard hit.
• If current efforts have not been successful in keeping some students in school, will there be new research and techniques financially supported by the State to reach these young people? Will raising the legal age of dropping out actually keep them in school?
• We currently have no real handle on the drop-out rate, as the Department of Education only has valid data on the number of students who start 12th grade and the number who actually finish. There is no data on how many start high school, but do not finish.
• Since a school district’s State aid is determined in part by the number of students enrolled, will the higher enrollment in districts with a drop-out problem result in more costs to the State as more aid is called for?
We also note that a fiscal note has not been completed on this proposed legislation…
Wrong strategy on dropouts
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
A proposal to raise the legal age for leaving school from 16 to 18 is a well-intentioned mistake being pushed through many state legislatures, including New Jersey's.
We agree that it is not a good idea to drop out at 16 -- or at any point before graduation. We also think it's impor tant to solve the dropout problem. As a group, dropouts earn $12,400 less annually than high school graduates and cost the state an estimated $70 million- plus a year in health and wel fare subsidies, lost tax revenues because of lower earning power, and law-and-order ex penses.
New Jersey's official dropout count is 19,000 students a year.
No one bothers to count kids who, long before they turn 16, attend school so infrequently that "still enrolled" is a meaningless term. That is just one reason that increasing the age for dropping out is not a likely solution. It's difficult to make kids go to school if they don't want to, particularly if their families are not behind the idea.
Some students believe they have to drop out for economic reasons. Changing the legal dropout age will not change that reality.
Other potential dropouts may be habitual truants who have faced frustration and failure. But if the problems of those young people have not been addressed previously, increasing the dropout age to 18 will only create bigger, more expensive truancy problems. It also will create problems for students who want to learn but have to sit in classrooms disrupted by those who don't want to be in school.
A state that demands stu dents stay in school until they are 18 is obligated to figure out how to educate students with learning and behavior problems.
We also worry that New Jersey's dropout problem will grow as the state moves toward a more demanding curriculum. A one-size-fits-all curriculum, with little consideration for ap titudes, college or career paths, will increase the dropout rate. Adapting the curriculum -- not dumbing it down but tailoring it to different learning styles, aptitudes and career and college paths -- might keep more kids in school.
Merely tinkering with what goes on in high school will not work educational miracles. Educators must address what is not being done in the earlier grades to create a love of learning and prepare kids for each new academic step.
Reducing the dropout rate also requires showing kids the benefits of staying in school. In urban communities, where the dropout rates are horrendous, talk about extra earning power is a tough lesson to internalize when students see chronic unemployment all around them. The classroom is not the only place where things must change to have an impact on the dropout rate.
Rather than invest in what cannot be enforced, it would make more sense for the state to put its money and effort into the kind of changes that might help young people understand the value of education and want to stay in school.
