Erik Wells Proposes West Virginia Bill That Would Revoke Parents' Licenses For Children's Truancy

In a nation replete with high school dropouts, educators and policy makers alike are searching for ways to keep kids in class.

Michigan prosecutor Kym Worthy has proposed that parents serve time in jail if their children miss too much school.

Now, West Virginia legislator Erik Wells has come up with another creative incentive he hopes will motivate parents to keep their kids on track. Wells has drafted a bill that would suspend parents' driver's licenses if their students are chronically absent from school.

According to The Charleston Gazette,

Parents who are lax about attendance are sentencing their kids to a life of limited economic opportunity, he said.

The drastic efforts by Wells and others remain controversial, especially after a recent study suggests punishing parents won't boost students' attendance.

CNN anchors discuss the proposed bill and have viewers weigh in on the pros and cons.

WATCH:

Comments

[paintitblack]

07:35 AM on 01/19/2011

Not the answer.

I'm guessing kids with chronic truancy problems are having problems at home- depressed/unemployed/hell, no parental support at all. Let's take away the parents' source of transportation? You're making a bad problem worse.

[Insanity rules]

04:19 PM on 01/17/2011

Blaming someone else gets you off the hook. Pointing figners doesn't get anywhere especially if you are not going to look to see if the way things are setup, are setup to teach students who have little support system. Some schools need that more than others but having a standard curriculum, testing, etc. doesn't allow the school to respond to their individual needs. I'm for decentralizing the bureaucracy of schools.

[bluecollaramerican]

11:19 AM on 01/17/2011

Why would anyone who doesn't care if their kids are missing school even bother with keeping a driver's license legally? They will drive no matter what,

[LeftRight]

12:42 PM on 01/17/2011

You're looking at it the wrong way. Many of us DO care, but don't know how to get our kids to actually GO to school. My wife takes our 17 year old to school EVERY DAY and I pick her up from school EVERY DAY, and there's nothing else we can do when she just decides not to go to a class or even to walk out another entrance after she's dropped off...

What do you propose? We go sit in every class with our children? Not gonna be able to do it.

[bluecollaramerican]

06:42 AM on 01/19/2011

It is not my job to propose solutions to how you discipline or bring up your daughter. That is your job as a parent and I think we agree on that point. How you persuade her to attend class and to realize that attending is in her best interest is also up to you - - not for me to decide. Good Luck to both of you.

[mikey09]

09:19 AM on 01/17/2011

Where I live the Judge will give kids and parents a chance to change, then if kids still miss school she charges them with "Contempt of Court Order" and has them put on an ankle monitor, school attendence ONLY....a couple of months of at home detention and school only, kids usually comply with the court order to attend school.....

[PICJEFF]

11:52 PM on 01/16/2011

This is the utopia Nanny State that Libs and Progressives alike LIVE for. This is not just Unconstitutional it is Absurd, but so too is the thought process of most Libs and Progressives.
They see a social problem with one of their very own Social Tragedies, in this case the Socialist School Systems that they have created, now they must act quickly or DO SOMETHING! In this case it really means do almost anything except think first at the existing problem and apply any amount of reason and logic to solving it. The unfortunate thing is that the Liberal Progressive Democrates that got this FOOL voted into office are most likely the parents of these children missing school and they will be last to have ANY law enforced upon them as parents, as they sit at home, watch the O channel and collect food stamps and unemployment checks and most likely DON'T have a drivers license to lose in the first place.

[Floridaval]

11:03 PM on 01/16/2011

Why did we hate school so much that we wanted to ditch it every chance we got.? I can think of several reasons, and not all of them will be received by students and educators with fanfare music.
1. Our students don't feel challenged.
2. We do have teachers who shouldn't be in the school system teaching.
3. Our curriculums are boring and don't inspire independent thinking.
4. The student doesn't have to work for the grade.
5. Teachers apply one size fits all when dealing with students, and that hasn't worked since my school days :-)
6. Parents are no longer involved in their children's education.
7. Parents think it's all the school's responsibility to teach their children manners, good behavior and the desire to study.
8. Our education system is terribly underfunded.

I am sure there are more, but let's leave it at that. From the time a child enters school, it is exposed to a variety of subjects. Let's take Math. I'd really like a teacher to tell me what he students have been taught by 4th grade, and if it's possible to accelerate the learning curve, so that a 4th grader actually knows what a 5th grader now has to learn and know. In 3rd grade, introduce a foreign language. Kids are great and curious enough to want to learn. Continue this language throughout the rest of the school years until graduation. Introduce Biology in the first grade and build on it til graduation.

[bluecollaramerican]

11:23 AM on 01/17/2011

Substiute the word "work" for your educational terms in your numerical list and see how well kids will adapt to world of work after they graduate from school, if they graduate. Since when was school supposed to be fun? It's the extra curricular activities that are for fun. The classroom is for hard work, not entertainment.

[Floridaval]

02:16 PM on 01/17/2011

I agree.But while I think we can strike a balance between fun and work, a certain work ethic for school has to be established as early as in 1st grade. And again, while a big part of our socializing happens at school, we must strike a balance. After school activities are good, but I don't know if that task should fall on the schools as much as it does. We set our standards too low for Johnny and Joanne for fear they might fail. I believe that is one major part that needs to be changed. We also need to teach curiosity and than bring in the way to solve it.We need to foster independent thinking, which should be highly developed by H.S. But even Music, Visual Art, and Drama should be part of the regular curriculum, so that ever student at least gets exposed to it.

I went to school in Germany and after the first 4 years (elementary grades) in addition to the regular classes like math, German, geography, etc , I had English, Chemistry, Physics, drawing, and Literature. And every year it seems , something else was added on. Earth Science, French, Choir. And every year these topics became more advanced. I had no choice (except if my second language should be French or Latin) and in HS, whether I wanted Physics, Chemistry or Biology. When I graduated I had 2 years of American College done. But I stayed interested, and never skipped class.

[Alexis Kraus]

08:21 PM on 01/16/2011

the "my kid's bigger than me" argument is a bad excuse. Take away their things if you can't do anything else. Throw out their cell phones and tell them that they won't get another one until they go to school every day for an entire semester.

[deadfed]

04:40 PM on 01/16/2011

Check out this story entitled, "AN ARGUMENT ON WHY PUBLIC EDUCATION IS GOING DOWN…"

http://deadfed.com/
(on the right side)

[VFausone]

03:46 PM on 01/16/2011

Crazed idea which is why it'll probably pass. How will preventing parents from driving assist them in keeping a child to school?

[laaambchop]

08:16 PM on 01/16/2011

they'll lose their jobs, so they'll be home to make sure the kids get on the bus!

[dbishop76]

02:21 PM on 01/16/2011

Respect of rules doesn't start when your kids start to skip school. Once you get to that point, you can do anything to a parent that you want and it's not going to make one bit of difference. My 14-year-old son stands four inches taller than me and I can't *make* him do anything he doesn't want to do. The only reason he follows the rules now is because I expected him to follow the rules from the time he knew there were rules. I demanded respect when he was 4 so that when he WAS 14, I would still get it.

[Michael Gerety]

01:01 PM on 01/16/2011

When you are at the point you must threaten parents with jail time to get their kids to school, you have already totally blown whatever it was you wanted from education. At this point don't waste the courts time, just accept the fact that you completely blew your whole educational system and sit back and enjoy the lower taxes by closing down the school system and stop wasting the parents and kids time. Who knows, it couldn't be worse than what this legislation insinuates.

[fortressfountain]

10:53 AM on 01/16/2011

Wow, now we have the legislators and prosecuters ganging up on the people. Why don't they get together and gang up on the banks charging sub-prime interest rates?
Parents will be forced to abandon their children so they state can pick up the tab.
Is this the old USSR?

[William Blomberg]

09:43 AM on 01/16/2011

And, how does this solve the problem of the truancy (I can only imagine that this would be for unexcused absenses)? Taking away a persons only mode of transportation will then put them in a position where they have to find someone else to drive them around (to work, to the store, etc), or break the law, by driving with suspended license. I can see that such a situation will only get worse rather quickly, where it would turn into the crimilization of a family, which would only turn to a downward spiral.

Is this how we encourage students to come to school?? Has anyone tried making school less about testing to advance the school and more about learning to advance the student?

[kalamere]

09:33 AM on 01/16/2011

BIG BROTHER

[sabelmouse]

06:56 AM on 01/16/2011

is it school or is it prison we talking about?

[laaambchop]

08:17 PM on 01/16/2011

same thing