Sun editorial:

Driver’s ed in comeback

High schools are beginning to reverse 30-year trend and teach student drivers again

Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009 | 2:07 a.m.

Driver’s education has been a casualty in many high schools, partly because education budgets have shrunk and teachers have focused almost exclusively on core academic subjects at the insistence of the federal government.

Nationally, about 15 percent of eligible students take high school driver’s ed, compared with 95 percent in the 1970s, says Allen Robinson, head of a group that represents private and public driver’s ed teachers.

USA Today carried his remark in a story last week about how driver’s ed is making a comeback in high schools. We support this trend, which a AAA official quoted in the story described as a “renaissance.”

Still, many of the schools are teaching driver’s ed only as an elective, with many offering only classroom instruction. Ideally, in our view, driver’s ed would be required and would get student drivers, and their instructors, out on city streets and highways.

After most school districts dropped driver’s ed, private schools offering expensive courses proliferated. This is because most states, including Nevada, require that prospective drivers under 18 complete a driver’s ed course either in public school or from a state-certified private company before applying for a license.

Online courses that offer self-paced written instruction are now popular. But in our view there is no substitute for a public school course taught by a certified instructor who is there for the student in person. That is the best way to observe and correct a student’s driving and to gauge a student’s understanding — or misunderstanding — of the rules of the road.

Nevada is part of the “renaissance.” The state Public Safety Department in June awarded a three-year grant to the Clark County School District, so it could develop a standardized driver’s ed curriculum for all of the state’s high schools.

We share the view of Brenda Larsen-Mitchell, the district’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, who said after the grant was awarded, “The role of the driver educator is not limited to just pre-licensing efforts but also includes lifetime learning components.”

Discussion: 3 comments so far…

By POWERPLAY

10/7/09 at 7:52 a.m.

Suggest removal

First they get rid of corporal punishment' Then the rifle clubs' Then they dump drivers-ed' Now they want to get rid of the S.A.T. TESTING. But yet they still have enough money in the budget to show the kids how to put a condom on a cucumber. I say get rid of the teachers union and those problems are solved. And keep the cucumbers were they belong in the produce department at the grocery store.
By martel3

10/7/09 at 4:14 p.m.

Suggest removal

My daughter started Drivers Ed at Northwest Career and Tecnical Academy this fall. Within 3 weeks the course was cancelled and turned into a PE class. So now I get to spend money on one of those expensive outside courses the article speaks of. I would have paid CCSD to continue the class but of course I was never asked.
By Phargo

10/7/09 at 6:35 p.m.

Suggest removal

a cucumber?