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Montgomery County school leaders are pushing for the state to increase the age at which students legally can drop out of school, but they might have a hard time finding enough lawmakers to back them.

State law requires students to stay in school until age 16, at which time they can drop out. On Monday night, the Montgomery school board, in an effort to reduce the county's dropout rate, approved a resolution calling on the General Assembly to raise the age to 18 when it reconvenes in January.

Montgomery school board President Shirley Brandman (At large) of Bethesda proposed the change, which is strongly endorsed by Superintendent Jerry D. Weast.

"We have to create the clear message that you can't walk away [from school]," Brandman said Monday. "It's just one piece of the puzzle, but I think it's a very important piece."

Montgomery County's current graduation rate of 87 percent is its lowest since 1996. Increasing the compulsory education age would force students to stay in school, Brandman said.

But that's not enough to make students stay, said Del. Anne R. Kaiser, who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, which handles education policy bills in Annapolis.

Kaiser is chairwoman of the Ways and Means Education subcommittee, so a proposal to increase the state's mandatory attendance age would go through her panel.

"I find a change in the compulsory age to be a well-intentioned policy, but a little unrealistic," said Kaiser (D-Dist. 14) of Burtonsville. "When we ask kids to stay in school and don't offer them anything new and different, I'm not sure what we're doing besides providing window dressing."

Del. Karen S. Montgomery (D-Dist. 14) of Brookeville said Thursday that she would support increasing the age at which students could legally drop out, but would need more information on the Montgomery school board's proposal.

"Letting kids drop out of school is not a good prognosticator of things to come," she said. "In the long run, it would hurt society. In the short run, it would cause problems with kids who would look to get themselves kicked out."

Montgomery's dropout rate of 2.7 percent in the 2008-2009 academic year was still relatively low compared with other school systems in Maryland, according to information provided by the state Department of Education.

Baltimore city led the state with a dropout rate of 6.2 percent. The city has had that dubious distinction every year since 2002, according to state data.

Not the first time

The issue of increasing the compulsory attendance age has come up before.

In 2008, Sen. Catherine E. Pugh (D-Dist. 40) of Baltimore city and Del. Aisha N. Braveboy (D-Dist. 25) of Mitchellville proposed statewide legislation to raise the minimum age at which a student could drop out.

The bill passed the Senate, but did not make it out of the House Ways and Means Committee. The bill's fiscal note stated that it would take an additional $45 million in state aid to keep would-be dropouts in school.

All told, 28 states have set 16 as the compulsory education age. Eight states — Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee — have made 17 the compulsory age. Other jurisdictions, including Connecticut, California, Hawaii and Washington, D.C., have raised the mandatory attendance age to 18.

Sixteen-year-olds who decide to drop out "really aren't mature enough to make decisions," said Pugh, who said Thursday that she plans to file another bill this session to increase the mandatory attendance age to 17 next school year, and 18 thereafter.

"If you take the time to counsel some of the students and deal with some of their issues, we can keep them in school," she said.

To maintain student interest in school, the state should strengthen its vocational education program, Montgomery said.

"Some kids aren't interested in the education but want a career," she said. "Many young people don't want to go on to college."

For Pugh, keeping students in school has become a passionate pursuit, as has getting legislation passed.

"We're going to work it until they pass it," she said of her bill.

In 2007, a task force created to study the issue found that raising the age was not enough to make students stay in school.

The task force, which was formed at Pugh's request, said that greater resources — better academic programs and interventions, for example — were needed to entice students looking to drop out.

"If we're not addressing the reasons why they're leaving, then what are we doing?" Kaiser said.

And while the Montgomery board's proposal is a "good goal," she added, "I think it is step 10 and not step 1."