Re: [Bikies] Parents Misbehave In School Car Lines

[Barbara Whitney]

When I was growing up, a long time ago, no one was driven to school (9 miles away in high school) or the baseball diamonds or the candy store or most places by their parents. I grew up on air force bases which are like small towns (10,000 people). Maybe the suburbs back then were similar to sprawlburbs now--I never experienced them, though I visited one once in college and we played board games and I vowed never to return. All I know is that sprawl kids of today lead a very different life than I did. They are driven everywhere, even if it's to school 2 blocks away or piano lessons 1 block away. that may sound extreme but I watched this with my own eyes (I had to change my vow to visit family and friends). and organized sports is a strange industry. instead of playing sports in the nearby school fields or parks (which do exist--I watched it with my own eyes again), kids are chauffered 30 miles to the Metro Park Sports Complex for their weekly 1-hour practice and game. You don't learn to play baseball that way. Sprawl kids are happy prisoners under constant supervision from their parents, who are happy servants.

-barb

On Monday, January 13, 2003, at 07:14 PM, Mitchell Nussbaum wrote:

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

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