MORE IDEAS NEEDED FOR KEEPING STUDENTS IN HIGH SCHOOL

As part of what he calls a common-sense package of crime-fighting legislation. Missouri's attorney general, Jay Nixon, proposes taking driver's licenses away from high school dropouts until they are 18 years old. The superintendent of the Cape Girardeau School District and the director of the district's alternative school for dropouts doubt whether this would do much to keep students in school.

Nixon is correct when he says the dropout rate in Missouri is too high. And he is correct when he says there is a correlation between a high dropout rate and an increase in the state's swelling prison population. And he is correct is looking for some way of making a high school education valuable to students so they will stay in class and get a diploma.

Statewide, 27 percent of students who enter the ninth grade never finish high school. The rate is considerably higher in the state's two biggest urban areas, St. Louis (60 percent) and Kansas City (40 percent). Even in Cape Girardeau, school administrators are concerned about the number of dropouts (up to 120 a year).

School administrators here think taking away a driver's license is punishment rather than a good incentive to stay in school. But Nixon may be right when he says teen-agers value a driver's license so highly that they would make an effort to stay in school to get one. The school officials worry that students would drop out anyway -- and drive illegally without a license.

The school district has another idea for enticing potential dropouts to stay in school. This is a process for hiring high school students for part-time jobs that would include an application with recommendations from teachers and principals. All employers of teen-agers would be encouraged to use this centralized clearing house for job applicants. There are some rough spots to be worked out with this plan too.

Both the attorney general and school officials are right to be looking for ways of keeping students in school until graduation. Instead of generating ideas on their own, it would be useful if the attorney general, school officials, parents, local police officials, employers -- and students -- would get together to talk about this problem. It it certainly serious enough to warrant an all-out effort instead of piecemeal fixes.