Overstepping Their Authority

I have to say I'm the first to promote kids getting an education, however not all kids are going to stay in school for a variety of reasons.

The school board in Las Vegas has come up with what I think is one of the worst ideas I have heard and I don't think it will change anything.

I think it serves no purpose as all it does is create a hardship and I think infringes on a young adults rights.

Here's the proposal to the Nevada lawmakers:

School administrators in Las Vegas say they have come up with a way for students to pay attention to things like attendance, grades, and graduation. Take away the car keys.

The school board say they will ask Nevada lawmakers to pass a law that will let school officials decide whether teens can have a driver's license or a work permit.

Even the School Board calls it a drastic step, but truancy and low graduation rates they say can no longer be tolerated. This week they voted unanimously to move forward with a bill that would keep kids accountable one that could even cost them a driver's license.

Joyce Haldeman the Associate Superintendent of the School Board says "we simply want to make one of the requirements for a drivers license be attached to student attendance and adequate performance in the classroom."

They're calling it the Graduation Priority Act, a bill that would incorporate several different measures to discourage students from skipping class.

Along with the grade and attendance requirements for driver's licenses, there would also be restrictions on the number hours a student could work. District leaders say too many kids are in school full-time and also working full-time.

School Board President Terry Janison says "it shouldn't have to be up to us but if we are going to be held accountable as a school district for ensuring that children are graduating then we're going to have to take some steps to ensure that that happens."

The Board fully expects to hear opposition and some members even expressed their own reluctance toward becoming a quote, "moral agency." Students themselves are expected to protest but bottom line, the new requirements the Board believes will provide new incentive to students who until now may have had very little.

The school board makes the statement "students who until now may have had very little incentive to graduate.

I would suggest they might want to change their methods of teaching and also check out what the teachers are doing in the classroom if they feel like students have had very little incentive to graduate.

Our school board is showing their intelligence by further stating "if we are going to be held accountable as a school district for ensuring that children are graduating then we're going to have to take some steps to ensure that that happens."

Nevada has the lowest high school graduation rates in the country with about 47.3%.

But the school board thinks a drivers license will solve the problem they are having with drop outs or kids that do not graduate.

This argument is just as lame as their sales pitch that a teacher can only teach 35 students at a time in the classroom. That's right if there are 40 students in the classroom the teacher some how forgets how to teach.

I don't think all the other states that rank higher in graduaion rates than Nevada achieve their ratings by withholding a drivers license.

Maybe it's time to take on the teachers union and put teachers in the class room that will actually teach and give the kids an incentive to stay in school.

There are some very good teachers in Nevada that anonymously would agree with me.

To my way of thinking this is one more example of the school board not wanting to take responsibility for their actions rather lets pass a ridicules law and deflect attention from the real issues of substandard administrators and educators.

In one of the school boards own words ""it shouldn't have to be up to us."

That seems to be the growing trend nowadays blame the problems on someone else.