SB 278 & HD 4568

Advocates for Home Education in Massachusetts:
Strengthening the grassroots presence of homeschoolers in Massachusetts

Massachusetts HD 4568 and SB 278, now HB 4666
SB 278
Advocates for Home Education in Massachusetts has been tracking a piece of legislation, Senate Bill 278, a bill that would require school attendance until the age of 18. This bill, if passed, would require homeschoolers to continue to report to their local school districts until such time as the homeschoolers reach "graduation" or the age of 18, whichever comes first.

On April 14, 2004, this piece of legislation, along with several other bills dealing with improving school attendance and decreasing the state’s school drop out rate, became part of a new bill, HB4666, "An Act Relative to Ensuring That All Students Have Access to Educational Opportunities and Quality Learning Time." You can read the text of HB4666 at http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/house/ht04666.htm. HB4666 includes the following:

SECTION 5 : .... The board shall establish the permissible and mandatory ages for school attendance; provided, that such mandatory ages shall be from the age of 6 to the age of 18, or until graduation from high school, whichever occurs first.

This bill was reported favorably by the Committee on Education, Arts, and Humanities and has been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee. The House Ways and Means Committee will evaluate the bill in terms of cost to the Commonwealth.

This bill, if passed, would be ineffective in reducing the dropout rate, and would result in increased spending for school departments. Data aggregated from a three year period to calculate high school completion rates on a state-by-state basis (Dropout Rates in the United States: 2000, p. 22; National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Doc. No. NCES 2002-114) merged with information about the age of compulsory attendance in each state shows that states requiring compulsory attendance until age sixteen have a higher average rate of school completion than those states requiring compulsory attendance until age seventeen or eighteen. (For details on these statistics in pdf format, click here; download Adobe Acrobat Reader here.)

AHEM is recommending that anyone who has concerns about the passage of this bill should write to members of the House Ways and Means Committee. We believe your letter will be most effective if written from the position of a concerned taxpayer, rather than a homeschooler who wants to avoid more paperwork. In your letter, you may stress your objection to section 5, "since the financial ramifications that would result from extending the compulsory attendance age would include increased costs in teacher's salaries, classrooms, and transportation. If this bill were likely to achieve the desired results, the cost/benefit analysis might justify these higher costs. However, since statistics show that raising the compulsory attendance age would not result in a higher rate of high school completion, the financial burden to taxpayers and already fiscally strapped school departments cannot be justified."

You can find contact information for members of the House Ways and Means Committee at http://www.mass.gov/legis/comm/h34.htm.

Statistics
For details on statistics about high school completion rates in pdf format, click here.

HD 4568
Representative Garrett Bradley (DISTRICT REPRESENTED: Third Plymouth) has introduced HD 4568, a bill that would amend M.G.L. Chapter 69, section 1B, raising the compulsory attendance age from sixteen to eighteen, by inserting after the word "attendance" the following: "provided, however, all children under the age of 18 shall be required to attend school if they have not graduated." This proposed bill is still in the docket stage and has not yet been assigned to a committee.

The financial ramifications that would result from extending the compulsory attendance age would include increased costs in teacher's salaries, classrooms, and transportation. If this bill were likely to achieve the desired results, the cost/benefit analysis might justify these higher costs. However, since statistics show that raising the compulsory attendance age would not result in a higher rate of high school completion, the financial burden to taxpayers and already fiscally strapped school departments cannot be justified.

AHEM is tracking the bill, and will notify people should the bill move from docket stage, and be referred to a committee. At this point, if people want to call or write Rep. Bradley about the bill, we would recommend that one write in opposition to the bill as a concerned taxpayer, not as a homeschooler. We recommend this course of action because opposition by a relatively small number of people who base their opposition to the bill on the fact that they will be inconvenienced by having to file paperwork with their school departments will not be an effective argument if the bill sponsor believes that a greater number of people, i.e. high school students, can benefit from the bill. On the other hand, concern about the cost to taxpayers with little in the way of results is a very powerful argument.

GARRETT J. BRADLEY
State House
Room 472
State House
Boston, MA 02133
Telephone: 617-722-2120
Facsimile: 617-722-2239
E-Mail: Rep.GarrettBradley@hou.state.ma.us

If the bill is assigned a bill number, and is assigned to a committee, there will be a public hearing and we will have time to respond. We will keep you posted.

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