About the last one; the military is not interested in anyone who can’t manage to graduate from high school (or at least get a GED). That’s not going to change anytime soon barring a massive war.
Some of these options are good. I personally like some of the ideas. I do not know, however, if they’d be politically feasible.
I personally have always felt that if you don’t mean to go to college, there should be vocational options. There certainly were when I was a kid. Regrettably these have gone by the wayside to some extent, since the politicians want to score points by “fixing education,” and thus giving the idea that we’re all going to be rocket scientists and investment bankers, and if the kids don’t make it, it’s the SCHOOLS’ fault…
You would think so. But you’d be wrong. There are loads of reasons why parents don’t make sure their elementary-aged kids go to school.
I have to say, I’m surprised that parents in your area get tickets if their teenage kids are truant. (Unless of course, the parents are deliberately keeping those kids out of school, which also happens). I used to work in CPS, and if a parent couldn’t get their teenager to go to school, the parents didn’t get punished. No tickets, they weren’t found to be neglecting the kid or to be responsible for the nonattendance. They might have been advised to file a Person in Need of Supervision petition with the family court but that would be it.
Some are, yes. Oppositional Defiance Disorder is a very real thing.
You’re tellin’ ME?
But the fact is, we can work with this. If the parents are on board. If the kid comes to school. If we are given the resources we need. We can work with this.
But kick out any leg of the above structure, and what we have is legal responsibility without the power to do a damn thing.