Council Seeks to Raise High School Dropout Age

A motion filed by City Councilors John Connolly and Tito Jackson to raise the high school dropout age from 16 to 18 was met with enthusiasm by their colleagues who said the city needs to send a message to local students and their families about the importance of staying in school.

“A college degree is the key to economic and social mobility in our society,” Connolly said at Wednesday’s Council meeting. “Raising the age to 18 sends a signal to our young people that we’re not just talking about college, we think it should be a reality.”

In the 2009-10 school year, 5.7 percent of high school students enrolled in Boston's public schools dropped out. Raising the age at which a high school student can choose to leave school would help lower that number, Jackson said.

“It’s really an opportunity to give the superintendent as well as the school system another tool,” he said Wednesday. “This is about us helping our young people to have the opportunity to really make a good life for themselves and their family.”

A Northeastern University study conducted in 2007 found that high school dropouts make up 70 percent of jail and prison populations in Massachusetts. In addition, the average high school dropout ends up costing state and federal taxpayers almost $275,000, the study found.

If Massachusetts were to raise the dropout age, it would join twenty other states that already require students to stay in school through the age of 18. New Hampshire recently raised its compulsory attendance age and has seen a “dramatic decrease” in its dropout rate, Jackson and Connolly wrote in an order submitted to the Council.

Councilor Charles Yancey expressed wholehearted support for the measure, which would bring the state’s educational system into the 21st century, he said.

“When we established 16 years of age as the age [at] which young people can decide their future it was a totally different context than what we have today,” he said. “I could not be more enthusiastic in my support of this.”

The matter was referred to the Council’s Committee on Education.