Move up graduation age to improve education

What can we do to improve education? Do we need to improve facilities? Teachers? Methods? Leaving no child behind?

It seems we have done all that with increased funding but has it helped with academic scores? Are we keeping up with foreign competition? There is much concern that we are not, especially in science and math. With our quality of life and opportunity, we should be a leader.

I suggest our approach to improving education should be “All Youth Helped Ahead.”

We have lived in the “Atomic Age” for more than 60 years, yet our K-12 system is still in the Stone Age. What is so magical about graduating from high school at the age of 18?

Thanks to television, PCs, Internet and cell phones, our youth are far more precocious today. Ten-year-olds are more street-wise than teenagers were in the 1950s. For those students not going on to colleges and universities, why not graduate from high school at 16?

The advantages are many. It would provide more capacity in teachers and in facilities for primary and secondary schools and more opportunity for 16-year-olds to join the work force earlier. It would allow them to gain skills in much-needed occupations such as mechanics, firefighters, police officers, nurses, paralegal, and technicians, either by attending community colleges, the military or Peace Corps.

Ivan Hardt

Cedar Rapids