From drop-out to dorm room

Indiana, bless your heart for not giving up.\nA legislative proposal called P-16 Plan for Improving Student Achievement is up in the air in Indiana. It's a massive education reform that plans to link early childhood learning to one's high school career. One of its marketable tenets: It raises the minimum age at which a child can drop out of high school from 16 to 18.\nThe rationale behind this age bump simply states that keeping kids in high school will increase the likelihood that they will go on to college.\n"We can't improve on the number of kids going to college if we lose them before they even get there by dropping out of high school," Stan Jones, the state's commissioner for higher education, told the Indianapolis Star (Oct. 5).\nNow of course, we're skeptical. For a child who is itching to drop out at 16 and explore his options in the vocational field to suddenly make a run for college seems more the exception than the rule. We praise the proposal for its high hopes and the notion that perhaps forcing a child through two more years of schooling will allow for some maturation before the child gives up on an academic education.\nHowever, policy -- that undoubtedly comes with a price tag -- should not be built on dreams.\nFurthermore, it seems the proposal is a little shortsighted. The children who drop out at 16 are not necessarily those dropping out due to grades. Under current law, a student can only leave school for unacademic reasons at the age of 18. Students dropping out at 16 must have permission from their parents or guardians, indicating that there are reasons beyond education that call for their leave. Would the parents then be superceding the ability for families to make their own educational decisions?\nIf P-16 is truly dedicated to sending more kids to college, legislators must realize that the two years at the end of a child's compulsory education are not magical. They won't lead a drop-out toward the path of a university. \nThe question we ask is, "What drew those children so far away from the college decision that dropping out at 16 became a desirable choice?" The answer dates back far before they entered high school. \nThe task of education seems to be that we want to fix problems in students at the moment we see them, not at the moment they are born. If it's educational reform we want, we must not kid ourselves into thinking we're saving the world by placing the burden on the children at the end of their state-funded educational growth to turn themselves around to help our numbers. In the end, it all seems a ploy to raise high school graduation rates, doesn't it? \nBless Indiana for trying. We'd like to think that you're right. But unfortunately, when it comes to education, we're all getting C's.