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It's not that kids can't walk to school, it's that our overprotective society won't let them.
that might be true to some extent but I don't blame the parents much. the autocentric environment is a scary place for pedestrians. even for adults. but for kids? its worse for them. in high school I usually had a ride to school in the mornings but had to walk home two miles a day. the route was mostly along busy arterials. it was a pretty grim and miserable experience having to walk along busy arterial streets and the constant roar of traffic congestion. I hated every minute of it. I rarely saw any other kids walking along the way, which made it even worse because it was a lonely walk. almost all of them were driven home.
It's not that kids can't walk to school, it's that our overprotective society won't let them.
There's that and there's politics, or used to be.
There are two wealthy suburbs outside Pittsburgh. They share a border. One school district was almost exclusively white with a smattering of Asian and was relatively homongenous in regards to income throughout the town with almost zero rental properties. The other had a slightly higher minority population and featured both exclusive enclaves and mixed income areas with a higher percentage of rental units.
When busing came into vogue the former went for it and all the Federal regulations that went along with it. They had nothing to lose as there was no threat of mixing income levels or races as it was homogenous. The latter refused the buses, built more schools, thus keeping the "better" and "lesser" parts of the school district segregated - not on race specifically, but certainly on income, which achieved their goals nonetheless. Home rule was also in place to prevent eventual merging with adjacent lower-income school districts which shared a high school physically located within the latter's boundaries.
Both districts remain in the top 10 in PA for achievement, but you will hear chants of "We've got buses!" vs. "We've got sidewalks!" at football games between the two. And it's true - in one community you cannot walk to school. Buses will stop seemingly at every house. In the other, you walk, unless you're a special needs student.
I have no idea whether one community's students is more fit that the other's as they both win championships. But from personal experience in hiring kids from both, students in the latter seem less entitled.
I didn't walk to school in the first neighbourhood I lived in because I went to the only French school in the suburb which was 5 miles away, so I took the bus. However, the local school was closer than the stop for my school bus, so I definitely would have walked. I took the bus to school for the first year when we moved to a low density suburb, although most suburbs in Canada are denser and should have schools within walking distance... and in fact even in this low density suburb I had a school about a 5 minute walk away I could have walked to, but it was Catholic. After that first year is when I started Junior High/Middle School (6th grade), which was a 10 minute walk away and I walked. I walked (or ran :P), and sometimes biked to high school, which was about a 20 minute walk away.
None of these walks (including the ones to the schools I could have gone to but didn't) involved crossing major roads.
Suburban neighbourhoods in Canada are generally designed that way, with major roads surrounding a neighbourhood and the schools in the middle of the neighbourhood. Nonetheless, a bunch of kids who lived as close or closer than I did when I walked were driven. I don't think it entirely has to do with the built environment, maybe the parents are too busy to walk their kids to school since they often both work, and driving them is faster, especially if it's on the way to work? Or kids are lazier, or maybe it's just the parents spoiling them, or maybe they're paranoid about pedophiles? I don't know...
There are two wealthy suburbs outside Pittsburgh. They share a border. One school district was almost exclusively white with a smattering of Asian and was relatively homongenous in regards to income throughout the town with almost zero rental properties. The other had a slightly higher minority population and featured both exclusive enclaves and mixed income areas with a higher percentage of rental units.
When busing came into vogue the former went for it and all the Federal regulations that went along with it. They had nothing to lose as there was no threat of mixing income levels or races as it was homogenous. The latter refused the buses, built more schools, thus keeping the "better" and "lesser" parts of the school district segregated - not on race specifically, but certainly on income, which achieved their goals nonetheless. Home rule was also in place to prevent eventual merging with adjacent lower-income school districts which shared a high school physically located within the latter's boundaries.
Both districts remain in the top 10 in PA for achievement, but you will hear chants of "We've got buses!" vs. "We've got sidewalks!" at football games between the two. And it's true - in one community you cannot walk to school. Buses will stop seemingly at every house. In the other, you walk, unless you're a special needs student.
I have no idea whether one community's students is more fit that the other's as they both win championships. But from personal experience in hiring kids from both, students in the latter seem less entitled.
Being from the Pittsburgh area myself, I find this believable. However, what you describe is not the situation everywhere. I'd bet that a lot of kids in the "no-bus" district are driven. I am on a schools study committee and one time we were debating this transportation issue. I was part of a group that did a survey of how kids arrived at school. I chose a school with NO busing except for special ed, and most of the kids were driven. Even some of the kids I marked as "walking" may have been driven up to the point that I saw them. There was very little car-pooling, either.
Here in Colorado, where people are more tight-fisted, transportation is based on distance from the school, and some districts charge transportation fees. My district buses kids at 1 1/2 mi for ele school, 2 mi. for MS and I can't remember for HS. In point of fact, few kids even live this far from the schools, and most kids are driven.
I have seen similar stats for the US as the OP posted for Canada. I think a ban on parents driving their kids would not fly here in libertarian Colorado, and I can see some problems with it. Do most moms stay home in Canada?
Being from the Pittsburgh area myself, I find this believable. However, what you describe is not the situation everywhere. I'd bet that a lot of kids in the "no-bus" district are driven. I am on a schools study committee and one time we were debating this transportation issue. I was part of a group that did a survey of how kids arrived at school. I chose a school with NO busing except for special ed, and most of the kids were driven. Even some of the kids I marked as "walking" may have been driven up to the point that I saw them. There was very little car-pooling, either.
Here in Colorado, where people are more tight-fisted, transportation is based on distance from the school, and some districts charge transportation fees. My district buses kids at 1 1/2 mi for ele school, 2 mi. for MS and I can't remember for HS. In point of fact, few kids even live this far from the schools, and most kids are driven.
I have seen similar stats for the US as the OP posted for Canada. I think a ban on parents driving their kids would not fly here in libertarian Colorado, and I can see some problems with it. Do most moms stay home in Canada?
Those distances for busing sound about the same as in Ontario, and yeah, few kids should have to take the bus based on that. Although it's 1 mile for elementary, and I think a little less for middle and high school too.
I'm not sure how the ban on driving kids would be enforced... maybe it isn't and it's just strongly discouraged.
By the way, the neighbourhood Jennifer Keesmaat lives in where most kids supposedly get driven dates from the early 1900s, so that suggests the number of kids who walked would have been higher at one point. This is her daughter's walk to school (roughly) that was shown in the video. There is one major road to cross Duplex Ave to The Bishop Strachan School - Google Maps
In IL school districts are highly protective of their turf. If a student is sent to a school in the wrong district, both districts may spend thousands in legal fees to stop it. Many times parents take their children to the wrong school because it is on the way to work. I wonder how many could actually walk to school but are forced to attend one farther away.
How much of this can be attributed to school consolidation? Fewer schools mean kids are going to have to travel farther to their schools, especially high school students. Some of those kids are going to be bused.
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