School dropouts
Freakonomics is a good book and it's one of my favorite blogs. They have a recent blog post about programs that punish dropouts by pulling their driver's license.
I dropped out of school in the 9th grade. I returned the next year and ended up getting a pretty good education, but you're really out of touch if you think a kid who wants to drop out of school at 14 is going to not drive just because the government tells them not to.
Most dropouts would not consider loss of a DL relevant to anything at all. They aren't going to stop driving just because the government tells them not to drive.
My experience with dropping out is that if school was interesting, if education was the goal rather than control, that many dropouts would prefer school to the alternatives.
All that this DL stuff does is extent the idea that school is about control, and that's just a reinforcement that the dropout's assessment of the situation is accurate.
If some kid needs help I guess it might be a good idea to hit them in the head with a baseball bat. But I don't think so.
I dropped out of school in the 9th grade. I returned the next year and ended up getting a pretty good education, but you're really out of touch if you think a kid who wants to drop out of school at 14 is going to not drive just because the government tells them not to.
Most dropouts would not consider loss of a DL relevant to anything at all. They aren't going to stop driving just because the government tells them not to drive.
My experience with dropping out is that if school was interesting, if education was the goal rather than control, that many dropouts would prefer school to the alternatives.
All that this DL stuff does is extent the idea that school is about control, and that's just a reinforcement that the dropout's assessment of the situation is accurate.
If some kid needs help I guess it might be a good idea to hit them in the head with a baseball bat. But I don't think so.
posted by Gary Carson at 2:49 PM
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