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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Most jurisdictions have school buses, but DC lets students ride Metro for free so they don't have to bother with dedicated school buses. But then they don't put resources into buses along those school routes because they don't generate much revenue. The city can still say, though, that kids technically have a way to get to school using public transportation -- just not a reliable way.

Not everyone has the means or schedules to drive their kids to school and by the time you get to middle school and high school, inbound schools often aren't in walking distance. And as a public policy, we should encourage public transportation over more cars on the road.

JR at least excused tardies last year because the bus from Mount Pleasant was a frequent no show, with the WMATA app saying routes were cancelled because there weren't enough drivers. And for lots of families, the big, beautiful bus reform seems to have made things worse.

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It's not about revenue. Bus doesn't generate much revenue anywhere.

They have to think about how to best serve the entire region under considerable resource constraints. Bespoke routes just for the schools in the wealthiest ward are generally not going to be the way to do that.[/quote]

If the city expects students to use public transportation to get to school, shouldn’t the city provide that transportation?

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I think the way school choice plays out in this city makes this a particularly complex problem. How do you serve students with transportation options equally (much less equitably) given the fact that only 28% of public and public charter school students attend their in-boundary school?[/quote]

Well, at a bare minimum, students should be able to get to their by-right school without needing a car.

And not providing public transit access to out-of-bounds schools in effect limits access to high performing for those who can’t afford to live in the neighborhood or travel there by car.[/quote]

So the lack of adequate service to W3 schools actually affects OB students at those schools the most?

Huh. 
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There are few OOB students at Deal/JR. Most of the Deal and JR routes are serving IB students who live on the edges of a catchment area that is way larger than it should be solely because of politics. Kids in Mt Pleasant, Adams Morgan, and 16th St Heights could get to Cardozo or Roosevelt fairly easily on public transit.

The Hardy/MacArthur area isn't well served by public transit, but school routes effectively serving IB students wouldn't be particularly useful to OOB students since they'd largely be going to neighborhoods with no/poor transit connections to the rest of the city.[/quote]

Your first statement is a big part of the issue.  People want access to JR, so they don’t want the boundaries adjusted.  If the council said “okay we will switch thr boundaries of families EOTP to Roosevelt” those families would flip out.  [/quote]

This is a really lame excuse for forgiving the city's transportation fails. If you can't afford to get there by car, you shouldn't be able to attend? About 30% of JR students live out of bounds. And what about kids who get into Walls, Ellington, or Banneker? The city can't tout the benefits of magnet schools and OOB access if they don't also provide ways for kids to get to these schools. [/quote]

Deal and Jackson-Reed are literally right next to a Metro station. I think the OOB kids are fine.

And yes, everyone else in this city has to consider the trade offs between school quality and school distance from home.[/quote]

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