New restrictions on driver’s licenses likely to backfire

If you’re planning a fishing trip anytime soon, we suggest you go to Carson City and stock up on worms. The Legislature just opened another big, fresh can of them.

Assembly Bill 64, debated last week, would prevent 16- and 17-year-olds from getting a driver’s license if they don’t attend school and receive passing grades. The Clark County School Board submitted the legislation as a sure-fire way to reduce the district’s dropout rate and increase its graduation rate (not to mention boost its per-student funding).

This proposal sets loose almost too many nightcrawlers to count. Among the obvious potential unintended consequences:

— Because high school students can choose to drop out at age 17, students with failing grades but a desire to remain in school might decide to drop out so they can keep their driver’s licenses.

— Disruptive students might stick around, to the detriment of everyone else, to preserve their ability to drive.

— The bill puts a new burden on schools to produce records of student attendance and academic performance for submission to the Department of Motor Vehicles, while simultaneously creating a market for fraud. Meantime, what about home-schoolers and kids in private schools?

— Many juveniles who won’t be able to get a driver’s license will start driving anyway, unlicensed and uninsured.

— The bill’s requirement that newly licensed 16-year-olds must renew their licenses after one year to re-verify attendance and grades, instead of after four years, will make the waits at DMV offices even longer.

— Teachers, already pressured by teens and parents to give students high marks so they’ll be eligible for Millennium Scholarships, would now have to deal with flunking youngsters pleading for passing grades so they can keep driving to school or to part-time jobs.

Worse, this major policy change is buried on page 47 of a 56-page bill. AB64 also seeks to water down high school graduation standards by letting some students receive a standard diploma even if they can’t pass every section of the state’s proficiency exam, and could yank a parent’s fishing license if their kid is habitually truant.

No more fishing? What will we do with all these worms?

The bill is larded up with so many unrelated statutory changes it would make the Congress in Washington proud. But the idea for new restrictions on driver’s licenses is the worst of all. This won’t get more kids to graduation day. Instead, it’ll backfire like a clunker in the student parking lot.