JCPS Busing

I respect the opinions of the folks on this board and I know most are educated and thoughtful so maybe someone help me out here.... What on earth is this busing all about?

I'm single, in my 30s, I've been living in my home in Crescent Hill for over 10 years now, no kids yet and I have just started to really follow this busing issue as I see more and more friends move out of the 'hood and into the 'burbs. Why? Schools. They either want a more affordable home (per sq. foot) so they can afford private schools or they move to another district all together because they can't be guaranteed they will go to their neighborhood school. They all say they would never move outside the Waterson, but then the time comes and....Poof. Gone.

Here's where I need help...I'm trying to wrap my brain around this. What are the benefits of this plan? Is it just that in the beginning "they" told us we would be diverse if we bussed so we cling to it regardless of results so that we can say we are diverse? How crazy is that? Surely there's more.

Here are my thoughts. It would be one thing if this plan had been a huge success and we had the best test scores and this utopia of diversity...but 30 some odd years later we have neither and you don't have to be a sociologist to understand why. A plan like this doesn't have a chance if 1) there is an entire socioeconomic group that can opt-out (and largely does) and 2) it is so expensive there isn't enough money left for fundamentals after you bus these kids...how many miles a day? Did I hear 25k? That's enough to circle the globe! That sounds high to me, but with 100,000 kids I guess it's possible. How much gas does one of those old yellow beaters consume anyway? 8 miles a gallon? Do the math on that. Sweet Maria! I understand that even if we don't "bus" we'll still have buses, but...come on.

Anyway, maybe I won't feel so crazy about it if someone can clue me into some benefits I've overlooked. I'm a transplant from another state and a product of public schools and from where I sit now, the only ones that have anything to gain from busing is the Catholic school "system".

Thoughts?

From what I understand, it was about diversity and giving those less fortunate a chance to go to a “better” school. They both sound like great ideas in theory, but shipping kids that would be going to a “better” school to a “lesser” is ridiculous. The cost of bussing the kids is less important to me than the time these kids are spending on a bus. There is no reason for a kid to be on a bus for 4 hours a day. How about we ship the good teachers to the schools where they are needed? Or how about we train or get rid of the crappy teachers?

This should be interesting. I look forward to reading the responses. After this conversation, we should have one on "Underperforming Schools."

[and yes, I am being genuine.]

My kids are 24 and 26, so I'll just say I'm glad I don't have a dog in this hunt...or a kid in those schools.

Our son went to Iroquois, the one in the Sunday paper. He has a reading disability and the staff really worked with him. Considering his struggles, you would think he would have hated school, but he had 4 years of perfect attendance. This school actually has very few "bussed" to them, those that do are there for the construction trades program. I honestly believe that parental involvement is a key to a child's education. It was disheartening to go to a parent-teacher conference at 1PM and be only the 3rd or 4th parent to sign in. I also worked in that district during his high school years - I saw what the home lives of some of the kids were like, disinterested parents at best, living with drugged up, criminal adults at worst. The teachers are dedicated and caring, my son keeps in touch with several still. Bussing is not the answer, changing the whole staff is not the answer - but how do we force "parents" ie, the ones who made these children, to encourage and help their kids? We are operating on the 3rd generation of "learned helplessness" and throwing more $$$ at this will not solve the problem.

Stepping off soapbox, return to your normal programming.

Exactly what Suzi said. My daughter is a teacher in the public school system. and works hard. My ex wife was a hard working and dedicated teacher for 30 plus years in the public school system.

Both have a lot of experience in the lower performing schools and they, along with other teachers I know, say the same thing. Most of the parents in these schools don't seem to care and you can't get them to conferences or return phone calls.

Contrast with the better performing schools and you will see lots of parental involvement.

Schools cannot substitute for parents.

Our son went to Iroquois, the one in the Sunday paper. He has a reading disability and the staff really worked with him. Considering his struggles, you would think he would have hated school, but he had 4 years of perfect attendance. This school actually has very few "bussed" to them, those that do are there for the construction trades program. I honestly believe that parental involvement is a key to a child's education. It was disheartening to go to a parent-teacher conference at 1PM and be only the 3rd or 4th parent to sign in. I also worked in that district during his high school years - I saw what the home lives of some of the kids were like, disinterested parents at best, living with drugged up, criminal adults at worst. The teachers are dedicated and caring, my son keeps in touch with several still. Bussing is not the answer, changing the whole staff is not the answer - but how do we force "parents" ie, the ones who made these children, to encourage and help their kids? We are operating on the 3rd generation of "learned helplessness" and throwing more $$$ at this will not solve the problem.
Stepping off soapbox, return to your normal programming.

Agree on the parents being involved. Our kindergartener was assigned to Roosevelt - Perry ( downtown) last year. We have two parents and resources, and it still would have been a struggle to make it to conferences./ open houses/ PTA on the other side of town. Tough for us, but what really gets me is the other side of the coin. How's a single-mom on the West End with no car supposed to be involved in her child's school ? She can't take 2+ hours off work to take a ( non-existent) bus to the East End school to be involved. Busing makes parental involvement worse, not better.

It is my understanding that our bus system is the most expensive and the most complex in the country.
To me that translates to mega bucks thrown down the drain. I would much rather see the money used in the classroom.

I agree bussing is part of the problem about parents being involved. Most of the schools have transportation availible for conferences and open houses. I have seen the buses come in almost empty to the open houses at my son's elementary school. That school had extra hours for parent teacher conferences, tried to get the parents do do telephone conferences and some of the teachers went to the homes to try to talk to the parents. Getting rid of bussing will not solve all the ills of JCPS. I used to believe that the distance was the problem until I found out from the teachers that the parents that cared kept in contact, the disinterested ones would not answer the door or pick up the phone.

.....So why are we bussing the kids around then? I still haven't heard an answer.

I didn't go to school here and do not have kids. I've never understood it. However, I hate it when I see a school bus driving around in the late afternoon with kids still on it. I know I've seen them as late as 4 or 5pm.

[Robin Garr]

.....So why are we bussing the kids around then? I still haven't heard an answer.

I didn't go to school here and do not have kids. I've never understood it. However, I hate it when I see a school bus driving around in the late afternoon with kids still on it. I know I've seen them as late as 4 or 5pm.

It goes back to segregation and public schools that were historically separated by blacks and whites. Louisville isn't far enough south to have had Mississippi-style segregation, but in fact parks, schools, libraries and swimming pools were segregated here until the civil rights movement. To our credit, the city quickly cooperated after Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, and by 1956 the former city and county school districts were fully integrated. But 20 years later, the city and county school boards merged into a single metro district in the early 1970s. When the city, with a higher proportion of blacks, merged into the mostly white county schools, the overall pattern of mostly black neighborhood schools in the inner city and mostly white county schools in the county couldn't stand scrutiny under the standards of the time, and busing was ordered and began in 1974. There was a lot of noise and some demonstrations in the wouthern and southwestern ends of the county, but compared with Boston, which desegregated via busing in the same year, it was relatively mild, and within a few months everyone was pretty much accommodated to it.

The schools continued to operate under a system of racial-balance formulas until a few years ago, although during that time some progress in integrated housing had reduced some of the need for busing, and the school system also got to be very good at drawing "gerrymandered" neighborhood school district maps to minimize the need to bus children out of their home school district. This was kind of a smoke-and-mirrors trick, though, since some of the gerrymandered districts were so weirdly shaped that kids had to be bused a long way to get to the school in their own district.

That's actually the situation that prevails today, in the wake of a court case decided by the Supremes just a year or two ago. Technically, we no longer have busing because every student goes to the school in his or her own district. But practically, many of the districts are so gerrymandered - not on the basis of race, by the way, which would be unconstitutional, but to encourage diversity by requiring a mix of family income levels - that a lot of kids still ride the bus to school, and a few of them ride a long way.

I think the schools thrived for the first 15 years or so under busing, but quality has slipped during the second 15 years. It's tempting to attribute this to the loss of oversight and moral guidance of a quality locally owned newspaper, but maybe I'm just riding a hobby horse there.

But anyway, that's the long answer to your question. The short answer to "why is there busing" is because of efforts to restore racial balance to the public schools that go back to court orders in the aftermath of the civil-rights era.

So I guess the question is.... Is the resulting racial balance worth the long bus rides? It would be interesting to hear what the kids who have to suffer the commute have to say on the topic. Does anyone have any comments/info from them? I honestly haven't paid that much attention to the public discussion.

I simply look at those late afternoon buses and think that I'd hate to be one of those kids at 4pm or whatever time they're still riding around. I hated to ride the bus for the 20 minutes or so I was on it as a kid. Seems such a tiny amount of time now in relation.

JCPS 2010 budget for transportation, $54 million.

They should be using that money to oh, maybe EDUCATE?

Don't get me started. My best friend is a teacher at a public school, and the crap she has to put up with on a daily basis is unbelievable. It takes a special kind of person to be a teacher. I am not that kind of person. I have a very low BS tolerance.

Are Charter Schools permitted in Kentucky?