Mandatory schooling: a teacher's eye view

I teach ninth- and 10th-grade English at a large high school in a New Jersey township about 45 minutes outside of Philadelphia. In most ways, I'm in a pretty enviable position: The school district is growing rapidly; it's more or less flush with cash; the area is solidly middle- to upper-middle-class and, while ethnically diverse, generally free of racial tensions.

Even given those circumstances, though, my school does have problems - the problems that are left over in any classroom once you strip away more-obvious distractions like violent crime or lack of teaching resources. My school, like all public schools, has a small percentage - in my experience, as small as 1 or 2 percent - of uninterested, apathetic, troublesome students who disrupt the learning process for the rest of the student body. The bad eggs are there, every year and in every class, making life miserable for teachers and students alike.

Over a 10-year teaching career, I've wondered about why they are there and what you can do about them. I've come to the conclusion that the problem ultimately stems from compulsory schooling laws. Or, to put it a little differently, many of the problems in public-school classrooms - especially at the high school level - would disappear if attendance were voluntary.

I realize that this sounds so nuts that I'm reluctant to use my own name. (I also don't have any interest in getting my fellow teachers - or my union - mad at me.) Although my colleagues constantly complain about trouble-making students, most of them would never seriously consider questioning, let alone gutting, compulsory school laws. In New Jersey, students can sign themselves out of high school at age 18; with their parents' permission, they can leave two years before that. I don't know that I'm 100 percent against mandatory schooling - especially through at least eighth grade - but I think it's worth pursuing alternatives. The system would work better if teenagers with no interest in school were allowed - or even encouraged - to bug out earlier still.

Last year, I had an experience that brought home the difference between compulsory and voluntary attendance. During the school year, I had a marginal student I'll call Kevin. On those occasions when he handed in assignments, they were almost always below passing. In fact, most of the time he did absolutely nothing in class, often forgetting his books, notebooks, pens, etc. But at least he was quietly nonproductive. There was a group of actively disruptive students in the class with whom I spent most of my time dealing - getting them to shut up, sending them to the vice principal's office, that sort of thing. So Kevin was something of a reprieve. At least he didn't take anybody else down as he failed the class.

That summer, I taught a voluntary class designed to boost basic skills - writing, reading, critical thinking - for remedial students. The kids (no doubt encouraged by their parents) had to choose to give up some of their summer vacation to take the class. Kevin was among the students and, to my great surprise, he did all sorts of work for me. He participated actively in class discussions, and his take-home work was much better, too. Free of the need to constantly discipline cut-ups and worse, I was able to focus on marginal students like Kevin who would respond to more attention.

The class was, in general, free of the petty distractions that crop up during the school year. You always have to work to engage the students - that's teaching - but I didn't have to put up with anyone who didn't want to be there. There were times when the kids didn't want to work, but I could always trump them with a simple question: "Then why did you sign up for this?"

That kind of rhetorical question falls flat during the school year because my students have a ready answer: "I didn't ask to be here. I have to be here."

With most students, you can always hold their grades over their heads: If you don't listen up, if you don't do your work, I tell them, you're going to have to go to summer school. Or, even worse, you're going to have to repeat the class during the next school year. I should stress that it takes a lot for a student to fail a class: Essentially, they have to do no work and put forth no good-faith effort during the school year. Kids clearly differ in background, raw intelligence, and skill levels, but if they work at it, they can earn a passing grade in my class. In my experience, I have encountered virtually no students who did not have the ability to squeak out a passing grade.

In my school, if a student's final grade is between 60 and 69 out of 100, he can take a six-week summer course to make up the difference and earn a passing grade. If the grade is 59 or below, though, the student has to retake the class during the next academic year. Those two possibilities usually bring kids into line.

But they don't work with a kid who is mathematically eliminated not only from passing the course but even getting into summer school - a fate sometimes decided even before the middle of a marking period. Once that happens, you have no way of reeling him in.