High school students should be forced to stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18, President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address.

Michigan's already there – or least on its way.



Gov. Jennifer Granholm raised the state's dropout age from 16 to 18 as part of a comprehensive education reform package in 2010, an effort guided by former State Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland.

Educators at the time said the change is long overdue, and that the plan could work as long as resources are available to help students both in high school and long before, to keep them from getting to the point where dropping out is an option.

Obama called for education changes as part of his address, again calling for merit pay for successful teachers and tenure changes to remove struggling struggling teachers from classrooms.

The president also called for more support for community colleges to train the unemployed for new jobs, and asked four-year schools stop increasing tuition and keep costs down to make a diploma more affordable for middle class families.

Most of the reform proposals have been part of Obama's Race to the Top program since his first year in office, and have drawn opposition from teachers unions, especially in Michigan.

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The National Education Association's Representative Assembly last year approved a series of reform proposals, including some similar to those called for by Obama, but without the support of the Michigan delegation.



Michigan's Legislature last year approved laws to reform teacher tenure to make it easier for districts to remove even veteran teachers after a series of poor evaluations. And Gov. Rick Snyder has called for a new category of teachers – master teachers – who could be paid more without having to move up to ladder into administration.

Obama said community colleges should be offered more support to turn them into “community career centers.”

Obama has been supportive of community colleges in the past, appearing at Macomb Community College in 2009 to announce a $12 billion plan to increase the number of people with in-demand skills.

The president praised the nation's teachers, saying that they work “tirelessly for modest pay.” He said a good teacher can increase the lifetime earnings of a class of students by $250,000, and said a good teacher can help students escape poverty.

E-mail Dave Murray: dmurray@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReporterDMurray