TUCKED away in a musty box of mementos in my house is a lengthy document. It was written by my father, who had a lawyer friend make it look official.

 This took place more than 25 years ago, a few months after the birth of my dad's first grandchild, my daughter.

Dad handed me the document and solemnly instructed me to have it filed at the courthouse.

He also told me I now was the owner of a small annuity. The beneficiary was to be the tiny new member of the family, and the money was intended for her college education.

The document spelled out my father's strong feelings about what the money could and could not be spent for. It was to go for her work toward a degree at an accredited institution of higher learning, and nothing else. Not for a car, not for sorority dues, none of that.

My parents were not wealthy, and the small sum was invested conservatively so it grew slowly. However, by the time his grandchild was ready to enter college, it could have covered nearly two years of tuition, room and board. 

As it turned out, she received a couple of scholarships and also worked part-time. My husband and I were able to pay the rest of her undergraduate costs without dipping into the annuity.

Four years later, when she had received a bachelor's degree, the initial sum placed in the annuity had grown five-fold. She finally tapped it and slowly spent it over the next two years in graduate school.

My dad had died a few years after her birth, but his hope for his granddaughter's education had been realized. 

That belief in the importance of education goes back even further in my family.

Of my four grandparents, only one managed to go to college. The other three didn't even make it to high school. Family finances wouldn't permit it.

But all four were determined to see their own children educated, and they succeeded. Those children in turn instilled the importance of education in their own offspring, my generation.

These days there are more options for parents and grandparents to create college funds, and many do so. Many families also are like mine in making it clear that pursuit of an education is a given, not an option.

However, that ethic is far from universal. Concern about low graduation rates in West Virginia high schools caused the Legislature this past session to raise the dropout age from 16 to 17.

The bill did not pass without controversy.

Opponents believed it would just keep uninterested kids sitting in classrooms longer. At best, they drain teacher time and other resources from more committed students. At worst, they are disruptive.

The Daily Mail editorial board has been meeting with candidates over the past few weeks. I asked some of the Putnam County school board candidates what would happen if the school attendance laws were simply repealed. I had begun to wonder if a dropout age was a good idea at all.

In my grandparents' day, there were no school buses to pick them up and no itinerant teachers or computer classes to let them study at home.

These days we bend over backwards and spend millions to force schooling on kids. Is it possible we have made public education so accessible - so mandatory - that it is less desirable? 

The candidates assured me it would be a very bad idea to do away with the attendance laws. Former long-time principal Jack McCoy said he sometimes drove to students' homes to pick them up and take them to school. Their parents simply didn't care.

Now state and local officials are wringing their hands over restructuring low-performing schools to draw down federal tax dollars.

We can replace principals and teachers, and we can revamp curriculums. We can throw a lot more money at an already-expensive system.

The hard truth is that existing schools work for many kids - those whose parents make education a priority.

We're trying to make them work for those who don't.

It may be an exercise in futility unless we recognize we are dealing with a deeper problem that school officials cannot address by themselves.

Friend is the editor and publisher of the Daily Mail. She may be reached at 348-5124 or nan...@dailymail.com.