Kids would be legally barred from dropping out of high school until they turn 18 under a proposal announced Sunday by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
The mayoral hopeful is pushing to raise the legal drop out age to 18 from the current minimum of 17.
“As a government, we give students permission to drop out of school at 17. When they’re children, we give them the permission to make an enormous decision,” Quinn said.
“By raising the minimum age at which a student can drop out of school to 18, we’ll ensure that only legal adults are making this important, life-changing decision.”
Some 9000 kids dropped out of city public high schools last year.
The proposal to up the legal drop-out age, which would need approval from Albany, was part of Quinn’s plan to increase the city’s graduation rate.
The truth is, whether the drop-out age is 17 or 18, the kids who have problems graduating actually start to have those problems much earlier.
You want to cut the drop-out rate?
Focus on freshman and sophomore year.
Students who enter junior year with all or most of their credits mostly graduate.
Students who enter junior year missing many credits often struggle and sometimes do drop out.
Oh, and another way to curtail the drop-out rate?
Stop turning every class into ELA class.
Let kids who like to draw do some art work in art class rather than have to write argumentative essay.
Let kids who like to play sports do so rather than write argumentative essays in gym class.
Students have expressed frustration to me over the past few years that every class feels like every other class.
Some of those students have eventually dropped out.
One final thing:
Add more counselors who actually have time to counsel rather than just track data.
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