A pricey ride to school
Thursday's lead editorial.
Finally, school’s out for summer. Park the buses and take a break from rapidly rising fuel prices.
One of the happiest people in North Carolina may be Derek Graham, Transportation Services chief for the Department of Public Instruction.
DPI began the school year budgeted for diesel costs at $1.69 per gallon. Although it was granted three upward adjustments, it never caught up, Graham said. And who can guess where prices will go next year?
The state covers the bulk of school systems’ transportation costs, but shortfalls have to be filled with local funds. Guilford County Schools is budgeting for larger shortfalls next year.
For Graham, summer provides a breather — but also time when local systems should look for savings by streamlining bus routes and developing ways to reduce idling time. “There are gallons to be saved,” he said.
Sharon Ozment, Guilford County Schools’ interim co-superintendent, said Tuesday that the system is working on efficiencies, including opportunities to run smaller buses on some routes.
Some systems may do more. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board will consider several proposals June 24, such as eliminating busing for magnet students who live closer than five miles from school.
With thousands of Guilford County students riding several miles to school, there may be significant opportunities to contain costs here as well.
What isn’t likely to change soon, besides high fuel prices, is lousy mileage by the buses themselves — less than 10 mpg, Graham said. The state did purchase two prototype hybrid buses made by IC Corp. Wake County has one and Charlotte-Mecklenburg the other. The problem: They cost $226,000 each compared to the typical price of about $80,000, Graham said.
High Point’s Thomas Built Buses is developing hybrid engine technology for school buses and plans to unveil its prototype at an expo in Reno, Nev., next month. Cost savings at $3 per gallon would amount to more than $1,000 a year per bus, the company said.
At the price the state paid for its hybrids, the deal would break even only if the bus lasted for 140 years or so.
“As the price of diesel fuel increases and the price of hybrid buses decreases as more are produced, the payback becomes more favorable,” Thomas President John O’Leary said in a news release.
In the meantime, Thomas is experiencing other problems, announcing 190 job reductions this week. High fuel prices pinch school budgets, making it more difficult for them to afford as many new buses. Thomas is North Carolina’s leading supplier, but the next state budget may include less money for new purchases, Graham said.
It follows that the need to conserve fuel may mean using fewer buses, a potentially negative development for the High Point manufacturer.
But precious school dollars are better spent on educating children than moving them, especially at $4 per gallon.
Comments (4)
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Here's another suggestion: let's quit busing students and let them go to their neighborhood schools.
Some kids ride the bus for literally hours a day so that schools have the "proper" number of children from different economic and social backgrounds. Why not let them simply walk or ride their bikes to neighborhood schools?
Many parents purchase homes based in no small part on the quality of the the local school. It is not the place of any school board to undermine the parents' choice by sending children to other schools just so they can have a warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing that a school is "diverse." High gas prices is yet another good reason to end busing for socio-economic reasons.
Posted on June 12, 2008 10:46 AM
Paul, you're going to contribute to some interesting discussions on the board.
I really think there's value in achieving socioeconomic balance at schools and also in giving students more options than simply attending the nearest school. However, policies regarding the mass movement of children weren't designed to absorb fuel prices over $4 a gallon. Fiscal realities (not to mention concerns about traffic and greenhouse gas emissions) must temper some policy objectives.
Posted on June 12, 2008 11:09 AM
Doug:
Thanks for your response. To clarify, I am not suggesting that local schools are the only place that students should be allowed to attend. If students, or their parents, want the student to go to another school, they can certainly petition for that. Additionally, we have magnet schools that students can attend. My problem is the school board trumping parental decisions about where their child goes to school based on little more than amorphous notions of "diversity."
Two more points: I am unaware of any studies that demonstrate busing for socioeconomic reasons increases student performance. Indeed, one could argue that all boy public schools or all girl schools, where there tends to be little "diversity," and kids can focus on their studies, have tended to turn out pretty good results.
Second, I have spoken with school officials who support diversity, and they have told me that there is no contradiction between being a neighborhood school and having a wide variety of children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Our neighborhoods are integrated enough that sending local children to local schools can achieve both goals of neighborhood schools that are diverse.
Posted on June 12, 2008 12:38 PM
The current public school educational program is a disaster. The liberals have infested our public systems and seem to have gotten their way. Fast forward to today, a large number of high school kids are dropping out. Not the way it was 30 years ago when each kid walked or biked their way to their local public school where behavorial problems were dealt with by the principal. Diversity is a new buzz word invented to force government to favor the poor, most who chose to remain poor, at the expense of the hard working middle class. Every educated person understands that most of the behavorial problems come from the children of poor families. By diluting the public schools with busing we have witnessed an outbreak of behavorial problems in all schools. Its out of control. And with the ACLU and NAACP who make fools of themselves to get their way, dicipline is no longer an option in public schools. As a result of those changes, public schools today are failures and a huge financial drain on the middle class not to mention they are models of failure. Time for an overhaul. Time to park the buses and let the overweight kids walk to school. I rest my case.
Posted on June 15, 2008 8:43 AM