Obsessive Compulsion

IN all the commentary on the murders at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., an obvious question has gone unraised: Why, if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were miserable at school, didn’t they simply drop out? Why did they feel trapped? The answer is apparently that the stigma of dropping out of high school is so great in middleclass suburbs that it is unthinkable.

In all states, compulsory-attendance laws forbid students to drop out until they turn 16 and sometimes until they turn 18 or even older. States have also imposed penalties on dropouts and their families, including reduced welfare benefits. West Virginia began in 1988 to revoke the driver’s licenses of minors who drop out of school, and other states have since adopted this approach, even though it has had a negligible effect on the dropout rate in West Virginia.

JT

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Jackson Toby

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IN all the commentary on the murders at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., an obvious question has gone unraised: Why, if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were miserable at school, didn’t they simply drop out? Why did they feel trapped? The answer is apparently that the stigma of dropping out of high school is so great in middleclass suburbs that it is unthinkable.

In all states, compulsory-attendance laws forbid students to drop out until they turn 16 and sometimes until they turn 18 or even older. States have also imposed penalties on dropouts and their families, including reduced welfare benefits. West Virginia began in 1988 to revoke the driver’s licenses of minors who drop out of school, and other states have since adopted this approach, even though it has had a negligible effect on the dropout rate in West Virginia.