Once again the Michigan Governor and Legislature are preparing to take the Michigan taxpayers to the cleaners in order to throw a plumb to special interest groups to which they are beholden. The MI House Education Committee has scheduled a hearing on HB4042, the
bill to increase the compulsory attendance age to 18, during their committee meeting at 10:30a.m., January, 29, in 519 House Office Building, Lansing, MI. Here are the reasons why its opponents say Granholm's assertion that it will decrease the drop-out rate is false.

1. It is no guarantee that kids will stay in school and graduate. Increasing the compulsory attendance age will not reduce the dropout rate. In fact, the two states with the best high school completion rates, Maryland at 94.5% and North Dakota at 94.7%, compel attendance only to age 16. The state with the lowest completion rate (Oregon: 75.4%) compels attendance to age 18. (Figures are three-year averages, 1996 through 1998.)

2. It does nothing to address the problem of kids between the ages of 12 and 16 who are already habitual truants. We already have laws on the books that aren’t being enforced.

3. There will be massive enforcement problems differentiating between kids who have a legitimate reason for not being in school and those who don’t. Such reasons include in-service days varying from district to district, part time students, home school students; those expelled either temporarily or permanently, etc.

4. It is a disservice to teachers and students who want to learn to force kids who may be disruptive, delinquent or dangerous to stay in school if they don’t want to be there.

5. The cost to employ additional teachers and create additional “alternative” schools to keep delinquent kids separated from regular students will be massive. With the budget woes Michigan continues to face, we can ill afford to force kids who don’t want to learn to remain in what will be viewed as “kiddy prisons”.