http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/04/23/bus.fees.ap/index.html
It seems some school systems are trying to support their budgets by charging fees to ride the bus. I personally think that as long as school is mandated this is ca ca.
Your thoughts?
Agreed.
OTOH, one could make the argument that if the school doesn’t have to provide free lunch to kids who can afford to buy lunch from the school, it shouldn’t have to provide free transportation either.
The free lunch program is a federal program. The schools don’t pay for it.
A lot of schools are in a bugdet crisis right now. Schools are just trying to find ways to fill their budget gaps. The people that are complaining about having to pay for bus transportation are the same people that refuse to vote for or pass school levies. Therefore they have no right to complain. Schools need funding and when they don’t get the funding they need it is the student’s education that suffers terribly, not the parent’s wallets.
When I was in grade / junior high school in the Chicago area, my options were walk, ride a bike or pay to ride the bus. This was 25 years ago, so I don’t see the problem with charging now for transportation service.
gotpasswords: How far from home was your school?
My junior high and high school were about 13 miles from my house. There was no chance of walking or riding a bike. What would I have done if I had to pay for the bus but didn’t have the cash?
Buses are a huge expense. Maintainence, driver’s salaries, gas, insurance, it adds up pretty damn fast. Administrators can’t make money appear out of thin air; it has to come from the public one way or another. Either taxes have to go up, so there’s more money to work with in the first place, people have to pay extra for stuff that’s optional, or the optional stuff has to go.
Saying that kids should get free non-parental transport just because they’re legally required to go to school is a bit silly, IMO. I mean, you’re legally required to get your kids medical care, too, but you don’t expect someone else to haul them to the doctor’s office for free.
Mr2001, I’m assuming that like any other school-related fee, there are exemptions for those who can’t afford it. Besides, as an educational expense, it would be tax-deductable at the end of the year, so you’d get it back anyway.
Hmmmmm…around here parents that have kids in school are the only reason the levies pass. It is the elderly that we seem to have a problem with.
Around here the levies don’t pass because so many use private schools. So if you can’t afford a private school, you are SOL because the public ones will be going bankrupt in 3 years.
Hmm
Well, apparently Australia has one of the highest tax rates in the world (I think we’re third or fourth). But I’ve never heard of free transport to school, and some students in Australia are so isolated that they have to go to school by radio.