Summary:

Roger Sipher believes that failing school systems can be saved by making them optional instead of mandatory.  He says that mandatory attendance does not help students that don’t want to go to school, and often the rules aren’t enforced because school districts don’t have enough money.  He states that abolishing mandatory attendance laws would save school districts 15%, and the level of education would increase.  He believes that students would learn early that if students want to continue their education, they will have to work at learning because teachers will no longer pass students that should not be passed.

Paraphrase:

Roger Sipher introduces his argument by suggesting that students that do not want to learn will not benefit from mandatory attendence.  He also claims that such students are ruining the educational opportunities for students that do want to learn.

Quotation:

Roger Sipher stated that “William Landes and Lewis Solomon, economists, found little evidence that mandatory-attendance laws increased the number of children in school”, which suggests that repealing such laws would not affect attendance, but would save schools money.