I think it's pretty clear that lots of kids live further from there schools than their parents did, for a number of reasons.
First of all, there are fewer kids per acre these days, even in traditional, densely-built neighborhoods. The old-timers in my neighborhood (Vilas) say that our block used to have dozens of children.. There are still quite a few families on our block, but the number of school-age kids is way down, probably to around six. Fewer kids mean fewer schools, spaced further apart. Since the sixties, a lot of school buildings downtown or near downtown have been converted to other uses: Longfellow School, Dudgeon School, Washington School (now the school district offices), Doty School (now apartments), etc. Also, kids are sometimes bused to distant schools even when there's another school within walking distance. We live a few blocks from Randall School, for example, but my daughters rode the bus to Franklin School for Kindergarten through second grade. Kids are bused to promote racial balance, to alleviate overcrowding, or to take advantage of special resources. I think a lot of other cities show the same trends as Madison. In suburbs, I suspect it's even worse, since new schools tend to get built in cornfields at the edge of town, and some districts like to clump several schools together on one site, for purposes of efficiency, diversity, etc. On the other hand, school buses do exist, and they are funded. Students might avoid the bus, but that's not because the buses aren't there. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul T. O'Leary" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Mitchell Nussbaum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, January 13, 2003 12:57 PM Subject: Re: [Bikies] Parents Misbehave In School Car Lines > > From: "Mitchell Nussbaum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > On the other hand, I never got a ride FROM school. I took the bus, or the > > subway, or I walked. (Of course, when it snowed, I'd walk the whole > > distance, barefoot, so I'd have something to tell my grandchildren...) > > You forgot to mention that it was all uphill... > > Both directions... > > I guess my more general question is, how has this happened? I either rode a school bus, walked or biked to school (okay, I went by X-C ski once). Anyone who was too far to walk could ride a school bus. And this was less than 25 years ago. Elementary schools were never more then six or eight blocks away. Junior High schools were never more than a mile away. So it was never really an issue until high school. > > Has that much changed? Are students further from their schools geographically now? Are school busses no longer funded? I've been out of touch with what's going on wrt public education I honestly don't know. > > --------------- > Paul T. O'Leary > Desktop Insurgent > Madison, WI USA > > _______________________________________________ > Bikies mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies > _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
