Compulsory Attendance, Essay Example

All of the articles I examined seem to support the fact that compulsory attendance is not effective. Gatto felt very adamant about the issue. Being an educator for many years, he saw firsthand, what he believed, the negative effects of this mandate. He pointed out that often students were taught things that were irrelevant to them and their lifestyles. Fikui pointed out that schools only want students to regurgitate what they have been taught. He believes that lives little ability for critical thinking and personality development. As a result, the information was boring to them and they felt it was a waste of their time.   They believed teachers had not been properly trained to reach diverse groups of students. As a result, teachers were just as bored as students when they attempted to teach them information they were uninterested in learning.  Students who do not want to attend school only cause problems in the classroom. Yet, most states have mandatory attendance policies for students in the United States. Most teachers lack the training, resources, and other necessary supports to teach and discipline students who are causing problems. Teachers have to take more time trying to stop disruptions, thus taking away from the time that could be spent working with students who want to learn. Epstein pointed out that children are often more mature than adults think. He questions whether or not today’s adults are stifling their abilities by not allowing them to take on responsibility.  Consequently, their main focus becomes avoiding disruptions, not teaching. Classroom management is more difficult because of mandated students-some with behavior problems due to lack of understanding. Often these students may not feel comfortable because they are older than their peers and lack proper social skills. Teachers are not giving specific strategies and accommodations to use with these students.  Finally, they felt that all students will benefit more academically if there were no compulsory attendance laws forcing students to attend school until a certain age. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that the benefits of compulsory attendance outweigh the cons.

The educational world has been in great debate about mandating students to attend school for many years. There are people who are passionate about what they believe is right on both sides of the argument. Somewhere in the middle of this are groups of educators, parents, and students who are confused by the concept altogether.  Many people are wondering if forcing a child to attend school is the best way to ensure he/she obtains a minimum degree of education to succeed in the real world. Nonetheless, this is not always the typical situation. Most of these students really need one on one help in a different type of setting. They are ashamed because they are older than their classmates. As a result, they would function better if they were removed from the environment. Likewise, the other students are suffering just as much as these students.

The first group to stress the importance of compulsory attendance was teachers and politicianers. They argued that low attendance prevented any meaningful learning from taking place. For example, in 1971 a superintendent  in Canada conveyed that he felt low attendance was the very reason why many great teachers left the classroom(Glasser, Ponzetto, & Shleifer, 90  ) Others who asked for mandatory attendance policies argued that many students who were being allowed to stay home did not have good reasons for doing so. They believed that forcing students to attend school would prevent the curse of generational poverty and illiteracy. For example:

Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold: 1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each person his or her personal best. (Gatto, 3)

Most of Canadians in the late nineteenth still lived in rural areas and primarily supported themselves by farming. Because of this, many children were kept from school to work on family farms during planting and harvesting season. Many teachers and principals complained about this. Many families rotated sending children to school. For example, one child may come to school for two weeks and then another for the next two week (Lleras-Muney, 420).  During the winter months attendance usually spiked because little field work could done; however the numbers were still not satisfactory. Children preferred leisure activities over sitting in cold classrooms. In early 1900, the average daily attendance was about 60 percent. Likewise, by the age of 10 or 12, both boys and girls had dropped out to work full time in factories or family farms (Lleras-Muney, 425).

Adequate person to person contact enhances critical thinking skills. This person to person contact cannot be achieved if students are not in school. Often when students do not attend school, they often spend hours on end in their rooms playing video games. Person to person contact helps students build coping and social skills.  In a survey conducted on a college campus in California, it was discovered that nearly 83 percent of the students surveyed admitted that they preferred text messaging, emailing, or other forms of communicating over face to face conversation (Olsen 15).  Lack of face to face communication depletes social skills.  In today’s tech savvy world, the use of computers creates a sense of anonymity allowing users to create multiple personas (Turkle 10). People are able tweet Twitter messages via social media and other forms of technology daily. Tweeting has a number limit on words that confines the writer to lingo. Often one will see them in a social setting, but instead of having a conversation with the people around them, they are messaging.  The constant lack of communicating with others will lead to isolation and the lack of ability to use the skill. Those who spend the majority of their time communicating via technology will drift away from family and friends.  They spend so much time on media sites because they can become who they want to be. For example, “they can play many selves and none of these characters are any less real than what they think is their true self “(Turkle 13). Turkle conveys that this can adversely affect the way in which a person’s personality develops (Turkle 13). The best way to combat these issues is to ensure that students spend adequate time within classrooms.

Disciplinary measures are very important in schools. Those who support the mandatory attendance policy state that it causes a decrease in bad behavior within the schools. However, Gilpin & Pennig, 2012 found that:

“Raising the age from 16 to 17 is not associated with any change in in-school crime.  Raising the age to 18 is associated with an increase of in-school crime of 6.2 percent (“crime incidences increase immediately” in four out of five states, while Nevada “displays a downward trend throughout the entire sample period,” p. 11).  Raising the age from 16 to 18 is associated with an increase of 12.2 percent in attacks without a weapon, 36.3 percent in threats without a weapon, and 43.4 percent in drug incidents. Raising the age from 16 to 18 is associated with an increase in suspensions of 4.8 per 1,000 students per year (a 34.4 percent increase)” (Gilpin & Pennig, 46)

Although some results are indicative that mandatory attendance policies are creating more negative effects than positive ones, there are numerous others that support the fact that compulsory attendance creates positive outcomes. Epstein argues that students would be more responsible if they were allowed to take on more adult tasks, He says, “Teenagers are inherently highly capable young adults; to undo the damage we have done, we need to establish competency-based systems that give these young people opportunities and incentives to join the adult world as rapidly as possible”. Many students do well with after school jobs. They learn to manage money and buy some of the things they want. They also learn how to manage their time by working and making time for studying. Their social skills are enhanced because they learn to interact with people they do not already know. However, many of these students are unable to managed their studies and work. They are often side-tracked by the idea of making money and opt more hours than they can handle. For example, one study found that students who work after school are often distracted and their academic career suffers. The study was conducted between 1991 to 2010 and concluded that those students who worked more than 15 hours a week saw adverse effects in the academic grades.

In order to meet the requirements and expectations of Plan 2020, compulsory school attendance is a must. Student attendance is imperative for many reasons. First, studies show that student achievement is directly linked to attendance. Secondly, students who attend school have better grades than those who are frequently absent. Finally, within the public schools, student attendance is directly connected to the amount of funding the institution will receive for educational purposes. The Plan 2020 has specific guidelines on attendance and holds specific persons accountable when children are not in compliance.  As a result, many states have laws that require the legal guardians of children to ensure that their children attend school. Finally, compulsory attendance insures that students who do decide to drop out are of an age that they can make an informed decision about the consequences that come along with the decision.

Works Cited

Gilpin, G. A., & Pennig, L. A. (2012). Compulsory schooling laws and in-school crime: Are delinquents incapacitated? (Working Paper). Bozeman, MT: Montana State University. Retrieved November 26, 2012, from http://www.montana.edu/econ/gilpin/research. html

Glaeser, Edward L, Giacomo Ponzetto, Andrei Shleifer (2007). “Why Does Democracy Need Education?” Journal of Economic Growth 12:2, 77-99.

Lleras-Muney, Adriana. 2002. Were compulsory attendance and child labor laws effective? An analysis from 1915 to 1939. Journal of Law and Economics 45:401-35.

Olsen, Stefanie. “Are We Getting Smarter or Dumber?” Brain Fitness & Brain Training. Posit Page | 15 Science, 21 Sept. 2005. Web. 26 Jan. 2015

Turkle, S. (2004). How computers change the way we think. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 50(21), 10-15