Passage D Millions of American students came back to school…

Passage D Millions of American students came back to school in recent weeks, navigating new classroom rules and cafeteria social hierarchies. For some, the hardest part of the day was simply getting to school. A chronic shortage of school bus drivers is making it difficult for many children to get to class. Some districts have had to shorten school days; others have even canceled school because too few children could attend. The fix requires a shift in mind-set. School systems’ obligations to students should start when children step out their front doors, rather than when they walk through the schoolhouse gates. The idea of a school-specific public transportation system is the product of very American forces. The westward expansion of the 1800s, the suburbanization of the post-World War II era and the consolidation of neighborhood schools into larger institutions distanced children from their classrooms. Compulsory attendance laws made finding reliable transportation imperative. And the rise of the car inspired a wave of innovation that culminated in the iconic yellow school bus. Underlying these developments was a sense that the state had a duty to get children to school. In 1929, just 8.9 percent of kids were transported to school at public expense, according to the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics. By the 1983-1984 school year, the figure was nearly 61 percent. Yet, as children’s homes and schools got farther apart, the number served by public school transportation systems fell. Increasingly, it’s parents, not bus drivers, who get behind the wheel for the school commute. That’s true even for short distances. Between 1969 and 2009, the number of children aged between 4 and 15 and living within a mile of school who got there on foot or by bicycle fell from 89 percent to 35 percent, according to the National Center for Safe Routes to School. In theory, it makes sense for parents to be responsible for getting kids to school. It’s not as though principals are going door to door to negotiate with kindergartners who only want to wear the T-shirt at the bottom of the hamper or to rouse drowsy high school juniors and bundle them off to trigonometry. But not all parents have work schedules that align with the school day, access to reliable transportation or even a fixed address. Sixty percent of children from low-income families rely on school buses. For kids with additional needs who must attend faraway specialized schools, that transport is crucial. This will cost money. But if kids can’t get to school, they can’t benefit from new phonics curriculums or fancy technology anyway. When the wheels on the bus stop going ’round and ’round, kids suffer. Let’s reclaim a sense of collective responsibility to get our littlest citizens between home and school. The author mentions the data from the National Center for Safe Routes to School primarily to
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