You can lead students to school, but you can’t make them stay

A few years ago, the Ontario government raised the compulsory school attendance age (CSA) to 18, thinking that this measure would lower the province's high school drop-out rate. Did it? It's true that Ontario's drop-out rate has dropped, but how much of that is due to the incredible ease of graduating from high school?

Skepticism is justified, because a new study from the Brookings Institute finds that "states with higher CSA ages do not have higher high school graduation rates than states with lower CSA ages" (in fact, they are actually slightly lower, on average). Another key finding is that "the costs of raising the CSA age for additional teachers and classrooms are likely to be minimal because compliance with a higher CSA age will be low". It would be very interesting to know how many Ontario 16- and 17-year-olds have dropped out of school despite the new law. 

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