
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 17, 1995                   TAG: 9509150063
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NEW POLICY

ROANOKE CITY school officials this year are focusing much-needed attention on attendance problems. Recently, administrators decided to adopt a policy - already in place at some other Virginia school divisions, including Roanoke County - that could help encourage more regular attendance and discourage dropping out.

The policy makes use of an incentive, squandered in the past, that carries considerable leverage with young people: the privilege of driving.

Under Virginia law, youths must be in "good academic standing" to be eligible for driver's licenses. But the law isn't much more specific than that.

The way it has been, if you simply are enrolled in high school, you qualify to drive. Dropouts also can get behind the wheel - as long as they have a certificate indicating they've been counseled on the importance of staying in school.

No more. City schools, says a spokesperson, soon will be using the definition of "good academic standing" that Roanoke County, which recently tightened its rules, and some other school divisions are using.

To qualify for driver's licenses, students will have to have passed five subjects in the previous semester. And dropouts under age 17 won't get by with a certificate testifying they've been told about education's importance. They'll have to re-enroll.

Now we're getting somewhere.

Sure, it's a sad commentary that the joy of learning, too often quashed by schools themselves, isn't always incentive enough to attend class. School reform is the larger answer to attendance problems.

In the meantime, though, the thinking regarding truancy, which makes sense, is that students who show up only sporadically won't be able to pass five subjects.

And the larger logic, which also makes sense, is that priorities need to be set, and an expectation of recriprocal obligations can help this happen.

School work should be seen as a job. It should come first. It doesn't now with too many kids who thereby cramp their futures.

Those who would object to using the leverage of driver's licenses shouldn't underestimate the damage young people do to themselves if they fail to finish school or take it seriously.

Nor should critics misrepresent the institution of driving. It is not a right or an entitlement. It's a privilege. There is nothing wrong with regarding a privilege as something earned.

by CNB