|
Various
Bills to Raise Compulsory Attendance Age
| Status
as of March 2008:
The
following bills have been included in SB 2462, "An Act
to Improve Dropout Prevention and Reporting of Graduation
Rates."
This
new bill, SB 2462, makes tools available to school districts
for accurate reporting of high school graduation and drop
out data. It also establishes the "Graduation and Dropout
Commission" to study dropout prevention and dropout
recovery programs throughout the state. This commission
will make recommendations on certain issues, such as raising
the compulsory attendance age from 16 to 18. The text of
the new bill can be found at http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/185/st02/st02462.htm.
The bill was reported favorably by the Education committee
and referred to the committee on Senate Ways and Means in
January 2008.
|
| Senate,
No. 304 |
Petition
of Stephen J. Buoniconti for legislation relative to school
attendance.
Now part of SB 2462. |
| Senate,
No. 329 |
Petition
of Michael R. Knapik, Bruce E. Tarr, Fred J. Barrows, Stephen
M. Brewer and other members of the General Court for legislation
to change the maximum required age for school attendance.
Now part of SB 2462.
|
| Senate,
No. 343 |
Petition
of Richard T. Moore for legislation to encourage school attendance
and to strengthen parental responsibility. Now part of SB
2462. |
| Senate,
No. 357 |
Petition
of Jim Powell and Margaret M. Regan for legislation relative
to school attendance.
Now part of SB 2462. |
| Senate,
No. 366 |
Petition
of Karen E. Spilka for legislation relative to school attendance.
Now part of SB 2462. |
House,
No. 394
|
Petition
of Garrett J. Bradley for legislation to require students
under the age of eighteen who have not graduated to attend
school. Now part of SB 2462. |
| House,
No. 401 |
Petition
of Antonio F. D. Cabral and others relative to school age
attendance requirements.
Now part of SB 2462. |
| House,
No. 407 |
Petition
of Stephen R. Canessa and others that the Board of Education
be directed to increase the maximum age for attendance of
students in the schools of the Commonwealth.
Now
part of SB 2462.
|
| House,
No. 463 |
Petition
of Bradley H. Jones, Jr., and others for legislation to encourage
students to remain in school until graduation. Now part of
SB 2462. |
House,
No. 576
|
Petition
of Marie P. St. Fleur and others for legislation to increase
to eighteen years the mandatory age for students attending
schools in the Commonwealth. Now part of SB 2462. |
Hearing
scheduled for Tuesday, May 8, 2007
The Education committee had a public hearing May 8, 2007 on a
number of bills dealing with improving school attendance and decreasing
the state's school drop out rate (see list below). Many would
require school attendance until the age of 18. If the age of attendance
were raised, homeschoolers would be required 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. We are not sure what would happen to the current
ability of homeschoolers ages 16-17 to take the GED.
Raising
the age of attendance 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.
Statistics
For details on statistics about high school completion rates in
pdf format, see Comparison
of High School Completion Rates Based on Compulsory School Age.
What
You Can Do
AHEM recommends that anyone who has concerns about these bills
should write to members of the Education committee. You can find
contact information for members of the Education committee at
http://www.mass.gov/legis/comm/j14.htm.
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 point out
that the financial ramifications that would result from extending
the compulsory attendance age would include increased costs in
teacher's salaries, classrooms, and transportation. If raising
the compulsory attendance age 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.
Back to Legislative
Issues
The
information on this website does not constitute legal advice;
it is provided for informational purposes only.
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