Obama's forgetting excluded children, who are denied access to education

On Tuesday night, President Brack Obama called for compulsory school attendance across the nation. But simply making school attendance mandatory is to overlook a real blight on our system of secondary education.

In Massachusetts, where I practice law, a child who is expelled from her school is denied the ability to attend any school in the entire state. Ever.  It seems draconian, shocking, and unbelievable.

But it's true.

The problem with this is that children change. The essence of being a child is to grow and learn from mistakes, as well as to be rewarded for positive developments in behavior.

In fact, children are more amenible to rehabilitation than adults. That's why the juvenile courts are charged with the task of providing children with rehabilitation rather than punishing them for wrongs committed against society. So to irreversibly take away a child's right to an education is to deny that very reality about children -- they change.

Furthermore, when looking at Obama's idea, one justification is the cost to society of people who do not graduate for high school.  That same justification is an important thought when considering the number of permanently expelled students with no right to attend school ever again, anywhere.