How can we take a bite out of high school truancy, and maybe improve graduation rates in the process? Hit the hooky players where it hurts.
For millions of teens, where it hurts is behind the wheel. Or rather, when they can’t get behind the wheel.
That’s what’s been happening in Georgia, and while it’s probably a pretty good incentive to school attendance for those students who consider driving one of their most precious privileges, the statistics are lacking, even though the law has been in place since the late 1990s.
In Georgia, minors who drop out, miss 10 consecutive days of school or have 10 or more unexcused absences can have their licenses suspended.
According to a recent story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, about half the states in the U.S. have some variation on such laws. But according to the Southern Regional Education Board, most states collect little or no data on the actual incentive/deterrent effects of linking school to driving.
Anecdotal evidence says it works: Tennessee officials, according to the AJC, say graduation rates are up since passage of that state’s law, and Cobb County truancy coordinator Paul Pursell calls Georgia’s law a “significant deterrent”: Students can have their licenses suspended for a year, or until they turn 18 if they are 17 or older. The state can also suspend a driver’s license if a school suspends the student, at least for something serious like drugs or violence.
The threat of driver’s license suspension has been anything but an idle one in Georgia: Last year alone, almost 13,000 students around the state temporarily lost their licenses just for truancy. Those who had their licenses suspended for other infractions no doubt made than number larger.
And, as the Journal-Constitution report noted, it’s not as if both students and parents don’t have ample notice that being temporarily banned from driving the public rights of way is a possibility for those who misbehave in school or skip it altogether.
Driving has been a treasured rite of passage for young people since the dawn of the automotive age. Laws like Georgia’s – whether they can be correlated to statistical improvements in academic performance or not – are a valuable reminder that a rite is not necessarily a right, and in the case of driving never should be. It is a privilege granted by law, ostensibly on the basis of demonstrated competence and compliance.
Obviously, those who need to be reminded of that principle aren’t limited to teenagers, as even a short venture around our streets and highways makes white-knuckle clear.
But for young people required by law to attend school, compliance with public education laws and compliance with traffic safety laws are part of the same social contract. Statisticians might soon quantify a public benefit. Common sense says they don’t need to.
