In President Obama’s most recent State of the Union Address, he spoke of keeping students in school until they turn 18 and of making laws against dropping out of high school. While it’s true that research shows a direct correlation between how long one stays in high school and income later in life, making dropping out uniformly illegal is not the best way to help teens. In fact, it’s the wrong way.
One of the main reasons teenagers leave high school prematurely is academic distress. They could be doing poorly in their classes, feel shunned by their teachers or simply not see the point of the material they have to learn. These are not problems with teenagers. These are not problems with students. These are problems with our school system. If dropping out is made illegal, will these things go away? Will financial troubles and substance abuse—two more reasons why students often drop out—disappear?
No. With this proposal, Obama is addressing the symptoms, not the cause. To heal a system with inherent frailties, such as public education, don’t start with the people subject to the system. Start with those who are responsible for the function of the system: the teachers and administrators.
The teacher is responsible for how well students learn. This means that teachers should have the time and capacity to reach out to students who are struggling, or disinterested or otherwise struggling. Right now, teachers can’t do that. There is a host of reasons for this and all of them are terrible.
Among them, there aren’t enough teachers in the U.S., period. Out of industrialized nations, U.S. teachers are the fifth-lowest paid after 15 years on the job; but they work the most hours compared to other industrialized countries. This being case, it’s no surprise we don’t have enough teachers. The only people who pursue jobs that involve lots of work for little reward are those who love the profession and can handle earning relatively little money.
Frankly, a lot of people can’t deal with having comparatively little money, especially in the current economic climate. We need to drastically increase how much teachers are paid to increase the number of people willing to become teachers. If we had more teachers in public education, we could reduce class sizes, allowing teachers to pay more attention to each individual student. Given sufficient time, any good teacher should be able to deal with most instances of slipping grades, disinterest and lack of engagement. There would still be some dropouts, but much less.
On the other hand, simply making dropping out illegal doesn’t improve the system. It simply makes it look better on the outside while ignoring the rot underneath.