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Dropping out of school

Should we force kids to finish 12th grade?

  • Yes, we should force kids to finish 12th Grade

    Votes: 12 28.6%

  • No, we should NOT force kids to finish 12th Grade

    Votes: 20 47.6%

  • Other, please explain.

    Votes: 10 23.8%
  • Total voters
    42
Sad that you're talking about our nation's children in this way, Gipper.
 
PoS said:
I believe so, having a high school degree wasnt a requirement to get a driver's license, you just needed to be 16.
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I really like the idea tying earning a license to completing 10th or 11th grade. :mrgreen:
 
lizzie said:
My son's girlfriend (it's a serious relationship), sews. It blew me away to learn that when I first met her. Young women who know how to sew these days are few and far between.
:agree: Too few, lizzie - too few! It scares the H*** out of me, and your son is a lucky man to have found one. I also worry about all those that don't know how to make anything more than toast, too. What they should be learning, IMO, is how to make the bread that feeds them that toast, because that might keep them alive one day, but that's another problem that's not being handled. I have taught my children all I can, and that's the best I can do, and that's why I agreed to help teach others who want to learn a little bit about self sufficiency. I just hope we have time, because in an emergency, government will take care of themselves first!
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Gipper said:
I support the right for them to choose whether to continue or not. I also suppor the right for them to fend for their own and allowing businesses to have nothing to do with hiring them because of inferior education. I also support the right for them to forfeit all public assistance and become a financial cripple for the family, or to die and be a cheap funeral.
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And you allow them to picket outside Walmart and Burger King for $15/hr too, right?

I wrote the same thing about public assistance before 18 too, btw. And using that as incentive for their family to 'encourage' their remaining in school.

Really, I just dont see why they dont have programs similar to Scared Straight where they had the kids visit the prisons and see the conditions and talk to prisoners.

Have them go back behind the counter at McD, follow a Walmart manager for a day, help out in a convenience store, etc. and see what the rest of their lives could be like.
 
We are in need of upgrading and improving our schools...we can copy Germany...for one....we should be leading, BUT, we are not one of the advanced nations...Germany and Japan for that...
NO, the concept of forcing others, a national problem...it MUST NOT be.
A great many of us are simply NOT smart enough for the senior year, however, they/we should be trained for manual work...
 
Gipper said:
I support the right for them to choose whether to continue or not. I also suppor the right for them to fend for their own and allowing businesses to have nothing to do with hiring them because of inferior education. I also support the right for them to forfeit all public assistance and become a financial cripple for the family, or to die and be a cheap funeral.
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NOT exactly a "lover of people" are you, G..................
 
Lursa said:
And you allow them to picket outside Walmart and Burger King for $15/hr too, right?

I wrote the same thing about public assistance before 18 too, btw. And using that as incentive for their family to 'encourage' their remaining in school.

Really, I just dont see why they dont have programs similar to Scared Straight where they had the kids visit the prisons and see the conditions and talk to prisoners.

Have them go back behind the counter at McD, follow a Walmart manager for a day, help out in a convenience store, etc. and see what the rest of their lives could be like.
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I'd be good with that, although it seems obvious that a life of minimum wage would suck without experiencing it firsthand. But hey - if they need nudging toward that epiphany, I'd allow for it.

All I ask is that they do their jobs and shut their mouths. They had ample opportunity to better themselves, but they chose to go make money while I was eating day old mac and cheese before my statistics class. If you choose not to make sacrifices, then I choose you to barrel-scrape for the rest of your natural lives.
 
nota bene said:
I really like the idea tying earning a license to completing 10th or 11th grade. :mrgreen:
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The last 3 states we lived in, that was a requirement. Good attendance was a must, and if you quit school before you were 18, your license was revoked until you turned 18.
 
Ray410 said:
One wonders what your nation is.

Americans have always valued public education as the key to the future for its children. Not in the terrible decline of today's multicultural pop culture of course.

Many Americans are desperately seeking alternative education to get their children out of the circus of the failed public schools. Naturally, the emerging socialist government is attempting to stop this outflow.
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no. they did not
until the GI bill became available to veterans after WWII, a college education was the privy of the elite and those very academically gifted, who often attended only because of offered scholarships
it was not until the advent of the GI bill that college enrollments boomed
the graphs would not load but you can see them here: History of U.S. Higher Education | Education Advisor
 
I voted "Other".

Allow me, as requested, to explain...

No, I don't believe we should force them to complete high school.

But I believe that any future social safety net benefits should be tied to a high school diploma.

Don't want to finish school?

Fine, drop out, but no welfare/food stamps/Medicaid/Section 8 for you.

I recognize that not all kids love school. I sure as heck didn't and barely wound up graduating with a GPA about .2 points above failing. But whether or not you like school, or feel you are getting anything out of it, it's still the absolute minimum bar to ever getting anything even beginning to approach a job that will provide you with a decent standard of living.

If you're not willing to put in the minimum effort that 95% of American employers expect out of you then don't come crying to me to support you when you can't get a job.

Now, if a guy goes the high school dropout route and actually does go to work and earn a decent living, and ends up paying into the system for a couple years, falls on hard times, and needs some help to get back on his feet, I'm okay with that.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Should the ability to drop out of high school be allowed? Or should we start forcing students to attend school until they pass 12th grade? (note: this only applies to 17 and younger as adults should be making their own choices)

Personally I think that we should force them to continue through 12th grade. It is pretty much a requirement in this day and age that people have at least a 12th grade education just to get a job slightly above minimum wage.
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Billionaire Dropouts: Five School Dropouts Who Made a Fortune | Fox Small Business Center
 
Kal'Stang said:
I don't believe in punishing someone their whole lives for a mistake. :shrug: Sometimes it takes years for the impact of not having a high school diploma for someone to realize "Hey, I made a mistake". I also don't believe in letting kids just drop out. Whether its a vocational job training, tier system like some European countries have, we need to do something to get those kids educated enough to where they are not a burden on society like most drop outs are. We can't just keep acting like there isn't a problem or just saying "meh, they drop out, they deserve whatever they get". We also need to start realizing the people are fallible and make mistakes instead of trying to treat everyone like they're suppoesed to be perfect from the get go, and if they're not then they are nothing but scum.
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And that's fine, there are plenty of options for getting an education that we can provide, including vocational training. We just can't allow people to wander the streets with no marketable job skills and their hands out. The expectation needs to be that everyone will be a productive member of society whether they like it or not. Right now, that is not the expectation and it's harming the country. If you need access to social programs, fine, but not if you've acted to harm your own ability to make it on your own. Why should I fund your welfare if you've shot yourself in the foot?
 
AJiveMan said:
Billionaire Dropouts: Five School Dropouts Who Made a Fortune | Fox Small Business Center
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I often joke about what I have in common with Bill Gates.

He and I are both from Seattle and neither one of us graduated from Harvard. He dropped out and I was never invited.

Seriously though. He and Paul Allen both attend Lakeside. An exclusive private k12 school in Seattle with tuition now at 28k a year. I'd venture to say his education there and two years at Harvard are easily equal to most college educations.
 
Cephus said:
Pointing to outliers doesn't change the reality. What percentage of the whole of high school dropouts do those 5 represent?
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I don't know. Look it up and get back to me with the stats.
 
Top Cat said:
I often joke about what I have in common with Bill Gates.

He and I are both from Seattle and neither one of us graduated from Harvard. He dropped out and I was never invited.

Seriously though. He and Paul Allen both attend Lakeside. An exclusive private k12 school in Seattle with tuition now at 28k a year. I'd venture to say his education there and two years at Harvard are easily equal to most college educations.
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I'm of the belief that if a person drops out of school, they can still be successful, not like Bernie Madoff, but a real success. If a person has the drive and ambition to earn more money to purchase life's necessities, why not?

I have heard on MSM that many college educated people are out of work.

Back in the mid 80's, my cousin had a degree for teaching, he worked flipping burgers, washing cars, and doing odd jobs, living with mom & pop, til he was finally offered a teaching job, 5 years of that BS.
 
clownboy said:
Only two of the five dropped out of high school. The others were college dropouts. The two that dropped out are not American.
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Okay. I dislike the idea of forcing a child to do anything. How about using influence instead of force.
 
Cephus said:
You're the one that made the claim so I'll leave it to you.
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What claim, all I did was post a link. That's the problem with cons, they're always trying to ram **** down people's throats and putting words in other people's mouths.
 
AJiveMan said:
Okay. I dislike the idea of forcing a child to do anything. How about using influence instead of force.
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We do that now in America. And if you dislike forcing a child to do anything, it would be a good idea if you steered clear of having children.
 
I understand the ideals behind making kids stay in school, but the practical reality is that the education system is a one-size-fits-all learning style that doesn't work for a lot of people. It didn't work for me. I left high school when I was 16, worked for a bit, then did correspondence later. There are also adult education centers for picking up high school later. If there's some other kind of personal development that needs to happen outside of school, then I'm all for it. There are plenty of people with a creative vision that takes them away from school and into their own ventures. You don't need a high school diploma to start a business, and if your ideas are original then you'll get ahead.

Plus, look at how abysmal the education system has become. Up to 15% of children are now medicated in order to force them to fit into the outdated model. The rest are being bullied, have teachers that don't give a crap, standardized learning that takes all creativity and critical thinking out of the process, constant class disruptions and huge class sizes, some have people shooting up schools in their state, etc... school was a torture chamber for me, a prison. My mind needed to be free, not dulled by idiotic mundane children with insecurity issues. Taking children out of school and giving them a better learning experience is a BLESSING at this point.

We should not be forcing adolescents to conform to our useless standard of learning. And yes, it is quite useless... most of the crap we learn in school has no relevance to living life. If I had my time back I would have dropped out and taken courses on business and finance, something that, for some reason, children are taught zilch about in high school.
 
clownboy said:
We do that now in America. And if you dislike forcing a child to do anything, it would be a good idea if you steered clear of having children.
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Oh well clowny, see my age, view my profile? My offspring attended school, and completed 12th. grade too. so there.

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