First Posted: 4/21/2015

In a perfect world, all high school students would earn that diploma and then they would either find a job — which a high school diploma hardly guarantees — or continue their schooling to learn a job skill or grab a college diploma that employers value.

But that isn’t the reality.

In North Carolina, the dropout rate, which has been on the decline, continues to hover just above 2 percent, which means 10,000 or so students leaving this state’s high schools each year without that diploma. Rep. Charles Graham, whose District 47 includes most of Robeson County, wants to lower those numbers by legislative fiat. Although Graham’s intent is noble, we aren’t convinced that if executed, its pluses overshadow its minuses.

Graham, by introducing House Bill 838, which would raise by the 2018-19 school year the age at which a student could drop out of high school from 16 to 18, has forced an important conversation.

Graham was motivated to reboot the push for a higher dropout age by this reality — about three-fourths of the inmates in North Carolina prisons who are 16 and older don’t have a high school diploma. This shouldn’t be that surprising; people who lack the resume to find work often get desperate and turn to crime.

Making Graham’s bill of heightened interest in Robeson County is that minorities are more likely to drop out than whites, with the percentage of American Indians being the highest, followed by Hispanics and then blacks. Amazingly, Robeson County’s dropout rate is at about the state average — although critics of an after-school program that was created to lower the rate complain it’s not rigorous and diplomas are being handed out.

“It is my hope that this bill will allow for serious debate about keeping our children in the public schools,” said Graham, a Democrat. “When a child makes a conscientious decision to drop out of school they are walking away from an opportunity that will prepare them for the rest of life… . In the 21st century there are few jobs that don’t require a high school diploma.”

Graham believes, and logic suggests he is correct, the longer a student stays in school and the closer he or she is to a degree, the better the odds that person sticks it out. It is true that someone who is 16 years old — still five years short of legally being able to drink an alcoholic beverage in North Carolina — doesn’t have the maturity or the knowledge to make a decision that could potentially turn their life’s path in the wrong direction.

The flip side — and why we worry that the bad will outweigh the good — is that telling a disinterested student he can’t pack up and go home isn’t likely to make him or her more determined about getting an education, but is more likely to make that person a disruption in the classroom, where teachers are increasingly losing control.

There are some children who, quite frankly, don’t belong in a high school classroom — and their absence benefits everyone, even themselves.

There is two years worth of room between 16 and 18, so there is room for compromise in a conversation we hope is about to begin. We embrace the idea of keeping students who don’t want to be in school there longer — but that can’t happen at the expense of students who are eager to gain an education.

Sixteen is too low; 18 might be too high.