As tempted as I am to talk about the Republican National Convention, it’s another story that caught my attention this week, Jill Long Thompson’s plan to address the high school dropout rate by get this, giving students an extra year to graduate.

That’s right. The democratic candidate for Governor thinks the best way to deal with Indiana’s high school dropout rate is give students more time to drop out.

Yes, someone who can’t stick around for four years of school is now going to stick around for five years of school.

I agree with JLT that we need to do something about the dropout rate. We need teachers to do a better job of engaging students and keeping them interested so they don’t drop out. We need parents to do their job and make sure the kids stay in school. And we need to utilize more public-private partnerships to keep kids form falling through the cracks.

But an extra year? Heck, why not make it six years, seven or ten. Or better yet, let’s just put no time limit on high school at all and let students finish whenever they feel like it.

In a bad attempt to raise the bar, all JLT is doing is allowing more people to walk under it.

For somebody who’s supposed to have an MBA and a Ph.D., this a pretty dumb idea.