By federal law, require all children to remain in conventional schools, whether public, private, or home, until age 16. Between the ages of 16-18, a student, with the consent of a parent, may enter an alternate, publicly paid vocational training program until vocational certification with mandatory, continued GED schooling.
Bonnie, what is your position on this law so I know whether or not I should contribute to it ?
Many states allow students to drop out at age 16 without a parent’s consent. Students also go through something called a social promotion. They’re not allowed to fail a grade twice. As students get older, they realize this, and once they fail, they don’t even try the second year, or they give minimal effort and fall father behind. We also have so many failing schools in this country that alternative vocational training programs would be beneficial to the communities those failing schools serve. If students were required to stay in school until age 18, but allowed to choose a path at 16 that would give them vocational skills to live a more productive life, I believe most failing students would choose that path rather than go through another two years of failure, or leaving school at age 16 with no skills and no education, and therefore, no financially successful future to get them out of poverty. I asked that they be required to also seek their GED because a GED is much easier to attain than a high school diploma. In most places, it truly is not an equivalent diploma, but it says to any future employer that they got the required education for success in job advancement
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Additionally, the vast majority of juvenile crime occurs during the school day by juveniles who are skipping school. Older students skip school because they see no future in school. If this law coupled with enforced truancy laws, it would keep juveniles off the streets and out of crime, give the police the ability to pick up 16 and 17-year-olds and make sure they return to school, improve the employability of 18 to 20-year-olds, and lower crime overall. The vast majority of criminals in their 20s, did not start once they reached the age of 18 or after graduating from high school. They started as juveniles. Producing vocationally skilled young people who would not otherwise finish high school and go into the workforce, will give another pathway out of poverty and toward a successful life.