dough, too. thank you. the national high school dropout rate at 8.1% right now and that has some lawmakers trying a new way to keep kids in school. six states are considering a bill that would revoke the driver s licenses of anyone who drops out of high school. but is linking transportation with education a good idea? for a fair and balanced debate, we are joined by bob bowden, an education expert and director of the cartel. and then we have steven ray goodman, educational consultant and author of college admissions together. thanks, gentlemen, for being with us. sure. good morning, bob, you were for this. tell me why. well, the nation s dropout rate is a tragedy right now. you can measure this in different ways. one is the actual kids that drop out. the other is how many don t finish because of bad grades and they don t get a diploma but california s department of education but that at 35% of kids not finishing high school in time. in texas, a group that year said 31% of kid
the states that are trying to pass this, now, lawmakers in montana as well as nevada tried to do this and it didn t work out. what makes you think it s going to pass in these other six states? i would only support this for minors. in other words, we have truancy laws that say kids have to be in school up to a certain age. if people support that up to 15 to 16, why wouldn t they support incentive programs involving driver s licenses that is not a right, it s a privilege, for kids who are 16 or 17? it seems to be not preposterous if you support truancy laws for younger kids. steven, there s the issue also if you have a lot of kids that can t go to high school. they have to drive their cars to go to work to help their families out or maybe save money for college and not necessarily dropping out of high school. they re just missing a few days. so that s right. what are your thoughts about that? i think that s right. there are a number of students who leave college early to st
in new york today on charges of sexually assaulting a maid at a luxury hotel in times square. dominique strauss-caan who is also a potential candidate in france is expected to plead not guilty. his arraignment was delayed last night after he agreed to undergo d.n.a. testing. police say that the maid did pick him up out of a line-up, he was arrested at j.f.k. s airport just as the plane was about to take off. and there is a heavy troop presence after deadly clashes between protesters and troops. waves of arab protesters descended on israel from all sides leaving at least 15 people dead. prime minister benjamin netanyahu is vowing to vigorously defend israel s borders with syria, lebanon and gaza. ? ready for liftoff, live pictures of the space shuttle endeavor in cape canaveral, florida right now. we re three hours away from the launch, the six astronauts blast off at 8:56 a.m. eastern time. nasa says problems with the power heater are fix. the weather looks good. it s endeavo