FRANKFORT — Education may pay, but basketball sells in Kentucky.

So Wednesday, Gov. Steve Beshear brought former University of Kentucky and NBA star Jamal Mashburn to Frankfort to help him push for passage of a bill to raise the state’s high school dropout age.

House Bill 225, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Greer, D-Brandenburg, would raise the dropout age to 18 but doesn’t do it until 2016, allowing school districts time to prepare for the added costs. The bill has previously passed the Democratic controlled House but failed to get a vote in the Republican Senate where critics expressed concern over its costs and potential to disrupt classrooms by older students who don’t want to be there.

Some school officials and lawmakers praise the intent of the bill but worry it does not provide funding for additional alternative school programs for those students. Terry Brooks, executive director of the advocacy group Kentucky Youth Advocates, supports the bill but said simply raising the dropout age won’t keep kids in school. He called on the state to invest in better alternative education programs, more early childhood education, and more career-oriented programs.

Beshear said the proposal provides “the opportunity to attack in earnest a fundamental problem that has held Kentucky back for decades.” He said Kentucky’s higher dropout rate and lack of educational attainment has “detrimentally impacted life throughout the commonwealth in every sector of society.” He said it results in a less attractive workforce, lower family income, leads to higher prison populations and less healthy citizens.

“And our state’s image suffers because of that,” Beshear said. “It’s time we as leaders take ownership of this issue and do something about it.”

Sharron Oxendine, president of the Kentucky Education Association, said teachers support the bill. But she said it’s frustrating to hear succeeding generations of politicians and education leaders talk about education as a Kentucky priority while watching the problem of under education of the state’s children continue each generation.

“If we’d just pay for a quality early education program, that would do more for a lot of the issues we spend each session dealing with that what we’re doing,” she said.

One of the statistics cited by Luther Deaton, incoming chairman of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, was a cost of a student’s education for one year in public schools compared to the cost of incarcerating a person for one year in the state’s prisons or jails.

Deaton said it costs $9,000 to send a child to school for one year but $19,000 to house an inmate for the same period. Oxendine called that statistic “horrifying.” Deaton also cited the need by business and industry for a better trained workforce in explaining the chamber’s support.

Oxendine agreed with all the points made on behalf of the bill. But she also said it’s time for businesses to “step up” and support improved education, even if it means paying more to support it. Parents need to value education as well, she said, some of whom may not want to see their children move away from home. And she conceded teachers “need to do our part and step up too.”

One teacher who did was the one Mashburn encountered at Cardinal Hays High School in the south Bronx in New York City his freshman year. The former All-American and now successful businessman and television sports commentator said he failed all three subjects he took the first quarter of his freshman year.

But a teacher pulled him aside and explained he was no longer eligible to play basketball and anyway, basketball is “not the end all and be all,” and “if it was not for that teacher, I would probably not be standing here today or even have played for the University of Kentucky,” said Mashburn.

Mashburn got his academic house in order, went to UK on scholarship and helped resurrect the program after it was placed on probation. He left for the NBA before graduation but established the Jamal Mashburn Scholarship Program to help others attend UK.

He talked about the need for better skilled workers, the need for more education for Kentucky’s young people “in order for Kentucky to prosper.”

First lady Jane Beshear, who lobbied hard for the bill in the previous legislative session, again urged lawmakers to pass it this time, calling it a chance to prove “to the rest of the country we are prepared to educate our children” and “to show our children we care about their future, we care about them and we care about our state.”

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.