More caps and gowns?

Thousands of high school seniors will march toward their graduation and get their hands on a diploma this spring. But as they either begin that intimidating search for something in the real world or pack up for college, it's important to remember there will be untold thousands of students across America also who won't be graduating.\nOn Tuesday, in a discussion of education in New Mexico, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry vowed that if he's elected president, he will push for one million more students to graduate high school within five years. An estimated one million to 1.25 million students drop out of high school each year (Associated Press, 5/4).\nKerry is proposing a national effort to synchronize the standards of what students learn in school to what they're supposed to know when they get to college or work. And he is backing laws already on the books in some parts of the country that allow states to withhold driver's licenses for those who drop out.\n President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, which was signed into law in 2002, has a dropout prevention provision designed to help curtail the number of high school dropouts by collecting information and applying accountability standards to schools.\n Unfortunately all the governmental standards and regulations in the world won't stop a student if he or she is determined to drop out. It's an impossibility that we will prevent everyone from slipping through the cracks, so it's our duty to catch as many as we can.\nWe shouldn't downplay the importance of government assistance, guidance and encouragement in the education process. The government should help draw across-the-board lines which students should aim to meet, and provide better options should students do exceptionally well. Diplomas shouldn't become easier to obtain by low-ball standards, because then diplomas won't mean much.\nA program designed to prevent students from acquiring a driver's license if they drop out of school is a tangible, realistic program that has some immediate impact on a student's life (whereas completion of high school, while in the long run will affect lives, may not seem to have an immediately felt impact).\nWe sincerely hope that, while the assistance looks nice on paper and sounds positive in speeches, it is also an effective resource. If it isn't effective, the program is of little use to students.\nIt's also critical that we do not undermine the importance that the student has in assisting, guiding and encouraging himself in this process. \nWhat we have to do is encourage students on a basic personal level -- through family, through friends and through school personalities - that dropping out is not in their best interest. It goes beyond the Department of Education. It takes person-to-person work. It's an effective intimate persuasion only friends can have on each other. \nSomeone should tell the government there's no law we can pass for that.