Would your child prefer to go to a neighborhood school or continued to be bused?

You miss the point. This isn’t about race. This is about property taxes paying for schools. This isn’t a black and white thing. This is poor vs rich. I know you want to see race in everything. It is getting old.

The school where his or her current friends are, regardless of whether it is by bus or by foot/bike.
And by the way, using school buses saves money and lowers the danger of children dying in traffic accidents on their way to and back from school.
And judging by my own childhood, you should never let the child decide over its own schooling, because it would rather not go to school at all.
Furthermore, having them use the bus instead of using mummy’s or daddy’s car would teach them from early on to rely on public transportation, walking or bicycles, instead of needlessly wasting money on personal motorised transportation.

johnpowell, that was not my point at all. my point was to ask the children if they would rather go to their neighborhood school, rather than to ride the bus across town. you are making an issue out of nothing at all. not a racial question….......just to seek a childs opinion. take a pill.

I would want them to go to the school where they would get the best education. I don’t currently have any children, but I would hope that any kid raised and influenced by me would come to a similar decision.

@johnpowell, busing is about equal racial access to quality schools in many parts of the country. There are school systems that are not based on tax-funded districts; all the taxes for the whole county or metro area go into one pool and are managed by one school system. The funding of individual schools within the system is based upon a per-pupil allocation.

What happens is that socioeconomic dictates of communities influence the academic performance of those schools; neighborhoods where the households are headed up by parents low educational levels perform at a lower level than neighborhoods where the majority of the households are headed up by college graduates, or individuals with professional or advanced degrees.

In order to compensate for the inequities, students are bussed from neighborhood school district to neighborhood school district in order to achieve racial balance, thus providing equal access to a quality learning environment. One inherent problem with the process is that it is generally based on race, and there are areas where caucasian students live in socioeconomic areas whose profiles match the targeted student profile. In other words, if you are white, your parents did not graduate from high school, are on welfare or work low paying laborer jobs, you are not being bussed out of your neighborhood to a better school.
This is a weakness of bussing when based solely on racial profiling of students.

In some systems in order to compensate for being sent out from a “good” neighborhood school, school systems have devised magnet programs in schools in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods to attract students to those areas by having them apply to those desirable school. Students must apply to those schools, and demonstrate that they are willing to work up to the levels needed.

Originally, it was projected that bussing kids would lead to better neighborhood integration, but that’s not the case.

Another fall-out from bussing is that kids who are bussed into a school are denied access to after school activities because there’s no activities bus to take you back to your neighborhood after practice. It either involves a long ride on a city bus with a band instrument or sports equipment, or an elaborate arrangement with other students’ parents who are willing to drive 10 – 15 miles out of their way to give you a lift home, out of the goodness of their hearts.

My source on this is that my brother was among the first bussing group in Louisville, KY. He went from the suburbs to a city school. My children both attended magnet middle schools; one attended a magnet high school. And, I’ve left work early more times than I can count because a friend of my daughter, who attended a different school from her, had no way to get from football practice to his house 15 miles away with all of his gear. He was just accepted to medical school, so my left-leaning liberal heart feels that my inconvenience was well worth it.

Bussing does make it hard for parents to be involved in the schools their child is sent to if they don’t have transportation, and the suburban area is not served by public transportation. In magnet schools, however, the level of parent involvement is much higher, because often parents who are hesitant about their child being sent out of their neighborhood become involved with the school PTO, sports teams, clubs, etc. in an effort to make sure the quality of the school is what they want it to be. As a result, it provides a framework for all parents to become positively involved in their child’s school.

If you have a horrible, disengaged school experience yourself, when your child starts school, you are not going to have the same level of engagement with the system and the process as a parent whose own experience with education is positive.

Last thing, in my current neighborhood, which has an elementary school smack dab in the middle of it, the students attend five different Catholic elementary schools and three private day schools, as well as public schools. More elementary students are outside the public system than in the public system. The idea of “neighborhood” school where all the kids on your street go to school with you doesn’t exist in my community.

It shouldn’t be the childs decision, the parents would be able to make a better decision.

If I had a child then my guess is he’d want to go to the school where most of his friends go but my child wouldn’t be the decision maker, I would be. My child would go to the best school I could afford and access be it by bus or my own transport. I’d hope my child would make friends well enough there to be able to answer your question with my choice.

We didn’t ask our children which school they preferred as there was more at stake than simply what they wanted and it didn’t seem fair to ask them. We sent them to the local school, which was not the best school, but they had excellent teachers there, made good friends, got extremely good grades and they both went on university.

Fluthermother, this is exactly what i meant to say in my question. great answer. john

The original question is a little confusing to me. Children usually get bussed because of how the district lines are drawn. My jr high was split in half, and kids who lived very close to me went several miles north to one high school, I went several miles south. They have to draw a line somewhere, and sometimes it seems odd where the line is drawn, but there probably is some logic behind it.

Now, if the question is riding a bus to a more desirable school, or going to a neighborhood school, I think the child will do the bus ride if he is excited about the school. If it is a magnet that has an emphasis in his interests, like music, art, performing arts, science, international studies, whatever it is, then riding a bus to school sounds perfectly reasonable.

I know the beginning of this thread there was an accusation about racial bussing, and I thought I would comment that I am against it.

@flutherother
Not the best school but they had excellent teachers, isn’t that kind of what makes an excellent school, is excellent teachers? Not being argumentative, just asking.

@truecomedian The school was not in the best neighbourhood and did not have as high a calibre of pupils as the alternative school. It’s academic record was therefore not as good and it didn’t send as many pupils to university. For these reasons, despite having many excellent teachers, some parents chose to send their children to a more distant school.

@flutherother
I guess my point is stay in school, it totally helps you not become a loser. I have an excuse, I was raised in a cult and was brainwashed against higher learning. They get angry when you tell them any facts. Stay in school, even if it’s a bad one, high school was awesome, I went to the best one, but that was a long time ago. I’m so obviously depressed right now,