Obvious solution is to teach them a trade by having them clean the school building.

/dey ain't doin nuthin anyway

Cant we just turn dropouts into soylent green or something?

My high school experience would have been a lot more fruitious if the kids who wanted to drop out were allowed to.

Isn't this how they recruit new teachers in Jersey?

Ed Finnerty: Who is NJ Bill and how did he amass so much power?

Undoubtedly muscle for Bill Stickers.

Teen Wolf Blitzer: My high school experience would have been a lot more fruitious if the kids who wanted to drop out were allowed to.

PRetty much that. I think school would have been better for most people if the ones that didnt want to be there and caused the most trouble were just gone.

Actually, I graduated at 16. A late 16, but 16 nonetheless. Huh.

I graduated at 17.

Only Outlaws graduate at seventeen?

Pffft.

;)

I dont see a downside - another year to bang the teacher

Maybe if the farking HS's were actually funded well enough to bring back all the vocational training that kept the less academically inclined enrolled. We had fantastic wood/metal/auto/welding shop along with food service and animal husbandry as well as horticulture and landscaping. Easily the equal of alot of junior college programs. Kids today are ratfarked if they aren't on university track.

Is this likely to be a significant issue in most of New Jersey? I presume the reform school keeps most of them until 21 anyway.

God, that state is a shiathole.

Wait, the article says that NJ already has one of the highest graduation rates in the country. Thank you, government, for rushing to fix what amazingly isn't broken.

Walker: Oh, and if you break the law you go to jail? Good thing we don't have any overcrowding problems or anything in jails. I'm sure they can handle the thousands in NJ that drop out every year. We'll just release the murderers to make room.

"I can get one half of the working class to kill the other"--Financier Jay Gould
This will serve to rebound our economy by growing markets for private security and private for-profit prisons while reducing the unrest caused by these conditions.
It's an excellent opportunity in the market!
Murderers are the least priority, they're the ones who run the show if you haven't noticed all of the drone strikes and police brutality domestically. Drug users, school dropouts, and others who don't take orders kindly should be the ones in jail, they would just contribute to worker misconduct anyway.

Good idea. Let's make already overworked and underpaid teachers have to deal with even more people who don't want to be there and have no desire to learn anything instead of being able to work with kids who actually want to do something with their lives.

Z Rowsdower: I support this decision.

Forcing the smarter individuals to stay in school to help the majority is much more beneficial to society than have a bunch of failures and one smart kids.

Learn math, farkers.

Ooh, wait...

I have an idear...

Make them stay and be paid tutors with college credit accumulating while they work...

Brilliant, I tell you.

Simply brilliant.

Make it so.

;)

Noo Joisey.

heh

socodog: God, that state is a shiathole.

It's really not.

drewogatory: Maybe if the farking HS's were actually funded well enough to bring back all the vocational training that kept the less academically inclined enrolled. We had fantastic wood/metal/auto/welding shop along with food service and animal husbandry as well as horticulture and landscaping. Easily the equal of alot of junior college programs. Kids today are ratfarked if they aren't on university track.

My old high school was like that they closed most of those programs before I got there. That part of teh buiding was pretty much closed off from the rest of it.

Author of said bill obviously a product of "New Math."

Bathia_Mapes: One would hope they would make provisions for those who graduate high school before they're 18.

Obviously, don't hold your breath hoping they do so.

It actually specifies that the requirement to stay in school until you're 18 only applies if you haven't graduated.

This bill raises the age requirement for compulsory school attendance from 16 to 18 years of age. However, under the bill, students who graduate from high school prior to their eighteenth birthday would be exempt from this requirement.

But pretending that it doesn't makes for better headlines.

Teen Wolf Blitzer: socodog: God, that state is a shiathole.

It's really not.

Born and raised. You're both right.

drewogatory: Maybe if the farking HS's were actually funded well enough to bring back all the vocational training that kept the less academically inclined enrolled. We had fantastic wood/metal/auto/welding shop along with food service and animal husbandry as well as horticulture and landscaping. Easily the equal of alot of junior college programs. Kids today are ratfarked if they aren't on university track.

Uhh yeah, they're called Vocational Schools, and they haven't gone anywhere. I went to one. Here's a list of NJ's offerings:

http://www.njccvts.org/school-districts.aspx

I dropped out of high school and now I work for NASA.

High school was and still is a waste of time for many people.

You guys do realize this is probably a truancy thing and likely has no impact on those who have already graduated?

I mean, unless the lawmakers are complete idiots, but when has that ever happened before...

EbolaNYC: http://www.njccvts.org/school-districts.aspx

Nice. Pretty sure we didn't have those where I went to HS though. Everything was all on the same campus.

I graduated at 17 as well. Commencement was the day before my birthday.

Yeah it's a technicality, doesn't make it any less true.

Z Rowsdower: Indubitably: Z Rowsdower: I support this decision.

Forcing the smarter individuals to stay in school to help the majority is much more beneficial to society than have a bunch of failures and one smart kids.

Learn math, farkers.

Ooh, wait...

I have an idear...

Make them stay and be paid tutors with college credit accumulating while they work...

Brilliant, I tell you.

Simply brilliant.

Make it so.

;)

Dude....

the Indubitably-Rowsdower Education Contention Solution solves more problems then it creates.

I think we've got it....

So, let's make it happen now.

Go and do.

Do and go.

I'm with you.

Graduated and 17 and was in the military before I was 18. Guess they would have to tell uncle sam to get me back to school?

I graduated at 16 only because there was nothing better to do with my time in my area.

HS is a waste of time for those who fall anywhere outside the middle 50%. If you're any smarter, you're bored and could be learning at an increased pace. If you're less bright, you won't retain anything you learn and don't need it anyway.

socodog: God, that state is a shiathole.


Honestly though, I moved a lot and went to school up and down the East Coast. NJ --> then MD (suburban DC) --> and then finally Florida. NJ's schools were the best and by far. It wasn't even close. My classes as a freshman in a NJ high school were like senior classes in Florida.

This was about 20 years ago though (FRAK!), so things could have changed in the interim.

It would have been nice to have more career centric / votech type options of education available around the age of 16.

Had a friend drop out during junior year so he could pick up a few jobs to support his brother and ailing mother. shiat happens in life and I really hope this "School until 18" isn't another one of those stupid Zero Tolerance Zero Compromise laws.

What about kids who skip many grades? Or people like me who graduated when I was 17? I know Subby covered that..... but I just have to shake my head sometimes.

Great. So keep the kids who don't want to be there penned in with the ones who actually have some appreciation of the education they are receiving. On the other hand, the classes I took during the last two years of High School were Community College level, without the benefit of an Associates. I think the better solution is to end "public" education at the tenth grade, and give out vouchers for Junior College to those who want to stay in the game.

poopshovel: I dropped out of high school and now I work for NASA.

Where even the janitors need a TS clearance.

Z Rowsdower: I support this decision.

Forcing the smarter individuals to stay in school to help the majority is much more beneficial to society than have a bunch of failures and one smart kids.

Learn math, farkers.

Average/less than average students don't overachieve in order to match their smarter peers. Smart and motivated students typically underperform to match the teacher's expectations for the class.

I like letting the problem kids drop out at 12

Let's face it, some kids are just smarter than average, so let them out of school earlier. If they meet the educational criteria, just let them go.

Don't bog them down in bureaucratic BS.

/Turned 17 in Jan, Graduated in June

Acharne: What about kids who skip many grades? Or people like me who graduated when I was 17? I know Subby covered that..... but I just have to shake my head sometimes.

Apparently one of the grades you skipped was reading comprehension, because the answers to both your questions are plainly answered in the article.

Hello, I am a politician. I need to get re-elected so I perceive a problem regardless of its legitimacy or significance. I will come up with yet another ineffective asinine law that treats the symptom rather than the disease, if I'm lucky. Can I count on your vote to keep me on the Gravy Train?

signine: HS is a waste of time for those who fall anywhere outside the middle 50%. If you're any smarter, you're bored and could be learning at an increased pace.

A lot of time in school is wasted on particular classes as well.

By the time I was 16, I knew that I was going to go into some sort of science/tech. The time I spent in wood & metal shop classes was a waste to me.

/could have taken another computer or chemistry class, or another martial art. Or music.