Laws Relating To Compulsory Education

In the United States, education is not only free and public, but it is compulsory in all continental United States and in its principal outlying parts. The aim in this study is to present in a summary manner what appear to be the most interesting legislative features of compulsory education systems in the various States: (1) When did the States first enact compulsory education laws?; (2) What are the various ages at which children are admitted and required to attend school?; (3) What educational requirements are necessary to exempt them from attendance?; (4) How much education is required for labor permits?; (5) What States require educational relief to dependent or neglected children?; (6) How much school attendance is required in the various States?; (7) What States provide for compulsory attendance at part-time, continuation, or evening schools?; (8) To what extent do States require the education of handicapped children?; and (9) What constitutes the machinery for enforcing compulsory education in the various States? These are but a few of the questions often asked by school administrators, teachers, and others in the States; these are also among the many questions this study endeavors to answer. It is not the aim here to discuss the relative merits of the various features of compulsory education laws found in the different States; the aim is rather to present briefly and clearly what seem to be some interesting features of such laws as enacted by the States. The aim is to present as many of these features as practical; and to do so, discussion of the same has been limited mainly to appropriate explanatory notes and remarks. There may be rules relative to school attendance adopted by various school boards or superintendents which are not shown here, as attention has been given chiefly to legislative enactments. The method followed in this attempt consisted in the preparation in this bureau of a summary of various features of compulsory education laws in all the States. A digest of some of these features was prepared for each State and transmitted to the respective State departments of education for review, with a request for any changes that might be deemed necessary in order that it might include recent and complete legislation on the subject. For the purpose of this study, the District of Columbia is treated as a State. (Individual chapters contain footnotes.) [Best copy available has been provided.

This circular supersedes Circular No. 278, September, 1950, by Ward W. Keesecker and Alfred C. Allen. The circular is designed to answer briefly the numerous and constant inquiries which come to the Office of Education relating to compulsory education in the United States. It also indicates some important trends in compulsory school attendance laws during recent years. For more detailed provisions of State compulsory school attendance laws the reader is referred to the texts of the laws of the particular States in which they may be interested.

This single volume text describes the origin of compulsory education in America. Each state's attendance laws are included.

" ... First published in the book, The Twelve-Year Sentence: Radical Views of Compulsory Schooling, edited by William F. Rickenbacker ... 1974 ... originally prepared for an education symposium, cosponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies and the Center for Independent Education ..." Bibliography: p. 69-79