My mother had me practice by reversing a lot because as someone with some learning differences, it is harder for me to learn how to drive. I got my license when I was sixteen, but even though my birthday was at the beginning of tenth grade, I found it to stressful to practice driving as much during the school year, so I did most of my practicing during the summer before eleventh grade, so that I would be able to leave campus during lunch and avoid the awful cafeteria scene where people would throw food at me.
I know driver ed teachers like to say that parking lots are not the best places to start practicing, but the local public elementary school is not such a bad place to start provided that you do it on a sunday, when they have no school. Also, if you ever go on road trips, it is good to teach new drivers about cruise control when they are driving in the country side because there are not as many cars in those areas.
When I get home, my mom said that I am going to take drivers ed again privately so that I can get a refresher and have an instructor remind me of things I may have forgotten since I have not driven a car in almost eight months.
I think that private drivers ed schools are better if possible because the classes are smaller and the teachers tend to maximize the amount of things that get accomplished during classes, verses my brother who took it through the public school was jerked around by his teacher and had to repeat some of his behind the wheel hours because they never marked down that he did them.