Schools Should Offer Driver's Ed

The entire process of getting your license in this day and age is all done on your own, but that wasn’t always the case. In the state of California, up until 1990, students were required to take driver’s education classes in high school. However, California stopped funding driver’s education due to a decline in the number of students getting their licenses, thus resulting in many schools discontinuing the program. 

Sophomore to junior year is around the time when most students turn to their parents and ask them to pay for their driver’s education. Students take an online course and are tested at the end of it. From that point, they can take their written test to earn a permit to drive. From then on, students get lessons from driving instructors and practice driving on the road. After six months of having their permit, they can then move on to take the actual driving test. 

Now, only some students go through that process. Others decide to wait until they turn eighteen to take their written test. The problem with that is those students don’t experience the learning process of driving. They miss out on learning safe driving habits, road awareness, knowledge about traffic laws, and hands-on driving experience from an instructor. If driver’s education was offered in school, students would have increased confidence behind the wheel, and could potentially lower the risk of accidents on the road.

Students have to dedicate time in their busy weeks to go through the online course, then go to the DMV and take their written exam, go through the in-person lessons, and then go back to the DMV again to take the driver’s test. Some people are brand new to the system, so they have to figure out how everything works by researching the topic, which can also add to the hours it takes to get a license.  If the online course and in-person lessons were offered as a class, that could cut the workload by many hours, which is crucial to many students and families.

Since learning how to drive is so important, schools should receive enough funding to offer driver’s education to their students. The online course can range from $40 to $80. The in-person courses are also very costly, most of them ranging from $300 to $800. On top of those expenses, there’s also a fee to take the written test itself. Not every family has the money for their children to pay for their driving education. Many families rely on their school to borrow things like laptops, school supplies, food, and more. If families can’t afford to pay for their child’s everyday needs to go to school, how would they be expected to pay hundreds of dollars for their driver’s education?