From the Rapid City Journal...

A bill recently signed by [South Dakota] Gov. Mike Rounds boosts the compulsory attendance age to 18 in 2009, which means any student entering high school during the 2009-10 school year must remain in school until age 18, unless the student graduates or is excused for other legal reasons.

There are no exact records on how many students drop out of high school, but the state Department of Education estimates that 900 students leave school annually.

“Some of those kids are drop-outs, some leave the state,” said Wade Pogany, director of curriculum and instruction for the state Department of Education.

From the HSLDA...

Senate Bill 171 is a legislative proposal which would raise North Carolina’s compulsory school attendance age from 16 to 17, until the child graduates from high school. If enacted, this legislation would require homeschoolers to comply with the law for an additional year, including an additional year of standardized testing. Home School Legal Defense Association believes that Senate Bill 171 should be opposed, because it represents an expansion of the state’s control over education, particularly homeschooling.

There are other reasons to oppose this bill besides its effect on home education. Studies have shown that persons 16 years old who lack the self-motivation to continue in school receive little benefit from compulsory attendance and, in fact, have a negative influence on other students their age who are attending school voluntarily. Given the breakdown of discipline in the public schools, legislators should not impose any requirement of attendance on students over age 16 who do not wish to be there and who will further disrupt efforts of teachers to instruct those students who desire to learn. Also, additional teachers will have to be hired and school facilities built to accommodate the additional students, all at taxpayer expense.

Compulsory attendance laws that raise the age requirements seem to be mostly feel-good Band-Aids that serve no real purpose. They do, however, negatively impact homeschoolers who adjust their educational requirements to the individual, rather than the government school, cookie-cutter approach. One has to wonder if that may be the real motivation behind these laws.