Raising Dropout Age the Right Move

Raising Dropout Age the Right Move

In a tough and increasingly competitive global economy where capital is mobile, a well-prepared and educated workforce is the key to economic growth and prosperity. The days of earning a middle-class wage with a high school diploma or less are largely behind us. By 2018, more than 6 in 10 job openings will require some post-secondary education, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

Yet, more than one-in-four Rhode Island students do not graduate from high school in the usual four-year period. Worse yet, one-in-six drop out. In Rhode Island, high school dropouts earn less than half of what college graduates earn and this large income differential will only widen in the future.

In an effort to address the need to prepare our children for the future, Rhode Island has joined over 20 other states in raising the age when a person can legally drop out of high school from 16 to 18.

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Signed into law by Gov. Lincoln Chafee and sponsored by Rep. Joe McNamara (D-Warwick) and Sen. Lou D-Palma (D-Middletown), the law also requires schools to develop individual plans to help students who are at risk of dropping out reach the goal of graduation. Turning this new state requirement into the kind of one-on-one active and persistent intervention that will really make a difference in struggling students’ lives is essential to boosting our graduation rates.

Rhode Island Kids Count, a non-profit policy group that issues a yearly report on trends affecting children, recommends establishing early warning systems using data from the 6th grade to first identify at-risk kids and providing intensive interventions in the 9th grade to students who are failing courses.

Aggressively tackling the high school dropout problem will not only improve the future prospects for many of our children, it will result in a major upgrade of our state’s workforce. As a report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education proclaims, “The message is clear; in 21st century America education beyond high school is the passport to the American Dream."

By raising the dropout age, the General Assembly and the Governor have taken an important step in the right direction. Now, the hard work of doing more to help our at-risk kids succeed in school must begin.

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Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.