Obsessive Compulsion - high school attendance should not be compulsory

National Review, June 28, 1999 by Jackson Toby

Disengaged students . . . do only as much as it takes to avoid getting into trouble. They do not exert much effort in the classroom, are easily distracted during class, and expend little energy on in-school or out-of-school assignments. They have a jaded, often cavalier attitude toward education and its importance to their future success or personal development.

Myth 2: The students who will leave school as soon as they can will generate a crime wave. Two studies exploded that myth a generation ago: a national study of adolescents conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan (Dropping Out: Problem or Symptom?) and a study of California youths conducted by criminologists Delbert S. Elliot and Harwin L. Ross (Delinquency and Dropout). Both studies followed students throughout their high-school years and beyond, gathering delinquency data covering the entire period. They independently reached the same conclusion: While it is true that high-school dropouts had a higher crime rate than other students, the higher delinquency rate preceded their dropping out of school and did not increase after they left.

Myth 3: Those who do not complete high school are doomed to live an economically and culturally impoverished life. What kind of job can a dropout get? How about flipping burgers for the minimum wage? Fast-food restaurants have a reputation for offering dead-end jobs, yet they are actually a major trainer of the poorly educated for jobs that lead into the middle class. McDonald's is more successful at training egocentric teenagers, including dropouts, to become good enough workers to move on to better jobs than most government training programs.

The surprising statistical finding of Dropping Out, which looked into the employment experiences of dropouts, is that on average they did at least as well as high-school graduates who did not go on to college. Formal education is not the only path to responsible adulthood. It should also be remembered that deciding not to complete high school is a revocable choice. The former governor of New Jersey, Jim Florio, dropped out of school at 17, joined the Navy, realized that his lack of a diploma was a handicap, took the GED exam, and eventually completed college and law school. Instead of locking the high-school doors to prevent students from leaving, we ought to let those who do leave know that the doors remain open should they wish to return.

The coercion of compulsory education hasn't worked well for a simple reason: Some people do not learn to tolerate school, much less to like it. And some of them engage in desperate coping measures. There was little point in keeping Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at Columbine High.