House bill advocates raising dropout age to 18

Brian Mickelson

Troubled by the rising high school dropout rate in southeastern Massachusetts, two state legislators entered the State House this week to voice their support for a bill they claim could “have an impact across the entire state” — by raising the minimum legal dropout age from 16 to 18.

Democratic state Reps. John F. Quinn and Stephen R. Canessa testified Tuesday before the state Joint Committee on Education that the high dropout rates are directly affecting unemployment and crime in communities such as New Bedford, Brockton, Fall River and Freetown.

“The dropout rates [in southeastern Massachusetts] are staggering,” Quinn said. “When you compare dropout rates, [which some estimate at] 9.4 percent, you really have to multiply that by about four.”

Quinn said that in the last two to three years, 420 students have dropped out of schools in New Bedford, where only 57 percent of high school students graduated in 2006. Almost 300 students have dropped out of Brockton schools during the same period. And unemployment in those areas has spiked to 9.5 percent, more than double the statewide average.

Raising the minimum dropout age to 18, they argued, will allow students more time to mature and seek out the types of services that would allow them to continue their education.

“It’s ironic that a student, at age 16, can make a life-altering decision to drop out of high school,” Canessa said. “But if a student goes to school one day and doesn’t feel well, that student must have a parent or legal guardian sign him or her out of school for the day. I do think that’s kind of backwards.”

Both Quinn and Canessa spoke on behalf of the SouthCoast Education Compact, a collaborative partnership between business leaders, area school superintendents, the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and Bristol Community College.

“This is a bill that will have an impact across the entire state,” Canessa said. “It’s not just New Bedford, Fall River and Brockton that are having issues related to dropout prevention.”

Part of the problem is that the economy in southeastern Massachusetts has failed to modernize as quickly as the rest of the state. The declining textile and fishing industries still account for a large portion of the region’s workforce, but no longer offer the jobs that high school dropouts could once expect upon quitting school.

“When the dropout age was created, it was when we had an agrarian economy, when if folks would drop out at least they could go work on a farm or help support the family business,” Canessa said.

The bill would also allocate roughly $10 million to fund a pilot student dropout prevention program, which would target potential dropouts in school districts that demonstrate the greatest need for aid. These programs will allow troubled students, in both middle school and high school, the opportunity for one-on-one treatment and access to innovative learning programs.