Earlier this year, Gov. Mike DeWine proposed spending $50 million to bring driver’s education back to high schools.
Ohio House Republicans this week cut the governor’s proposal from the state budget bill, the main vehicle for DeWine’s legislative priorities.
House Speaker Matt Huffman told reporters on Wednesday the move came in response to concerns from private driving school operators.
“We had several driving schools come in and say, if this is now going to be assigned to the schools, we’re out of business,” Huffman said. “And so I think with most things, and driver’s education is one, typically, the marketplace is going to do a better job.”
The way DeWine proposed funding the program may also have contributed to its demise. The governor wanted to pay for it by raising taxes on marijuana sales. Republicans said they don’t want to raise taxes in any way, and cut any DeWine programs in the $60 billion budget that were funded by them.
DeWine responds
In a brief interview on Wednesday, DeWine said it remains early in the budget process. He also reiterated why he made the proposal in the first place. Programs often are cut but then restored before the end of budget negotiations, which are set to wrap up at the end of June.
“We do not have enough drivers training facilities in the state of Ohio,” DeWine said. “So we need to make it more convenient, and we need to expand the number of locations. The easiest way to do that is to allow the schools to develop drivers training.”
Advocates describe access problems
Driver’s education largely was held in schools in Ohio until the early 1990s, when many schools dropped it in response to state funding cuts. Since then, responsibility largely has shifted toward private operators.
Advocates and officials in the DeWine administration say that for some teens, the privatization effort has failed, especially in urban areas, where driving school can be unaffordable and in rural areas, where options are limited. They describe limited enrollment slots, high prices and slim profit margins for operators.
But advocates and DeWine administration say the privatization effort has failed some teens, especially those in rural and urban areas. They say the result has been a system with limited enrollment slots, high prices and slim profit margins for operators.
This limits their job opportunities and their ability to participate in extracurricular activities, advocates say. It also places them at a higher risk for crashes if they get their licenses after they turn 18 without driver’s ed, according to a state-funded 2022 study conducted by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania.
DeWine proposed expanding a state program through which he’s seeded a school-based driving provider based in Zanesville and Cambridge. That program, which also got off the ground through federal coronavirus relief money, began with 13 school districts, but today covers 30 districts in 18 counties ranging from Oxford near Cincinnati to the Toledo area.
