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School run: Cutting car use will take much more than educating children and parents:
As the summer holidays come to an end and children return to school following lockdown, there couldn't be a better time for us to consider the school commute. Nowadays, many children in the UK commute to school by car. But getting more parents to ditch the car for school journeys and switch to more active modes of travel, such as walking or cycling, is of great public health importance.
[...] As cities have expanded under suburban sprawl, commuting distances to school have increased. They are longer now than they have ever been before. This is another reason more children travel to school by car now than they used to. Less than half of all children in England attend their most local school.
An education policy that lets parents choose their child's school compounds the issue of suburban sprawl. Those parents that are able to exercise choice do so, and in some cases travel great distances so that their child attends the best-performing school. Once school choice has been decided, so too has children's mode of travel to school. Longer school commutes equals more car travel.
[...] Tackling the real causes of car dependency on the school commute would benefit children, society and the environment. It would solve several public health challenges.
If all children attended their local school, fewer children would travel by car, and because of this, fewer children would be injured on the roads. There would be less noise pollution and less air pollution, which would reduce children's risk of developing respiratory conditions. We would see more people speaking to each other on our streets because of the increase in footfall, and there would be an improved sense of safety because there would be more "eyes on the street."
Will eliminating school choice for children make them healthier?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Friday August 28 2020, @09:10AM (1 child)
I work in UK schools. Always have. Never worked anywhere else. 20+ years. State, private, primary, secondary and further education.
It's nothing to do with school choice - catchment areas and other things mean that most kids go to *A* local, if not technically the closest (when I was 11, I was assigned to my "nearest" school, which was actually further to walk to, because it was only nearer as-the-crow-flies based on local mapping. In actual fact, the school I went to was on pretty much the same street I lived on, and while maybe 100 yards further away, was 500+ yards closer to walk! So let's scrap this "Less than half of all children in England attend their most local school" nonsense.
I walked to school every day, because my neighbour's kids also did, so we did it in groups. Parents drop kids off for safety, not convenience. Nobody lets their primary-age kids walk to school any more (it's actually a flag the schools can raise as an act of neglect!). So you can exclude all primary schools from your stats. And obviously the first few years of secondary school (age 11+), for the same reason, until they're big enough to look after themselves.
Then account that parents have to work. My mother never worked for my whole school life (and still doesn't, retired now). That's simply not possible nowadays - if the child's parents are working, they're going to drop the kids off to ensure they go to school and get there on time, because the parents have to be out of the house too, and will want to make sure their property is secured.
Then account that often, for safety, one parent might well pick up their friend's kids on the way too (because that friend is working, for instance!).
Now, don't get me wrong, I've seen more than my fair share of 100-yard drives-to-school parents. Who are often dressed in jogging gear but did their morning run then drove their kid 100 yards to school. It's very common. But it's by far not the rule.
Also, most kids even in private schools are within a short drive of their schools. Bus routes exists for further out kids (maybe not the extreme outliers) but they don't use them for various reasons (cost and even image in private schools, hassle, timing, early-rising, bullying and crowd control, etc.).
The cause of car dependency is, however, very simple:
The parents have to use the car to get to work.
The parents have to be in work on time.
The kids have to be in school on time.
Every parent has the same timing, every school has the same timing, therefore traffic on the roads near schools at those times is horrendous.
My journey time to the school site TRIPLES or even QUARDRUPLES between holidays and term-time. Same guy, same time, same route, same destination, four times longer.
So now the parents all have to leave earlier, which means that there is either no supervision of the children or they have to push them to school earlier (which means reducing travel time). Nobody has the time to walk their kids to school, walk back, get ready for work, then commute. And they don't want the kids walking - because of everything from the threat of paedophiles, crossing busy roads (full of commuting parents!), dangerous crossings (because of parents-in-rush-dropping-off), bullying, etc.
Literally every school I've ever worked in has had parents trying to drop off children up to TWO HOURS before school starts - when there are no staff around at that time. They have to drop their kids off, then rush to work in, say, London and get there on time If they don't, their job is at risk. Parents are already having days off for their kids illness, paying for babysitting, booking holidays in the summer, etc. because they just don't have time to juggle kids and career. That never used to happen. It used to be dad goes to work, mum stays at home and sorts the kids out. That scenario no longer exists.
And schools can't / won't open their doors that early (it's very expensive, manpower-wise, and they are assuming the risk of supervision). Schools are babysitters now, because parents can't afford them but have pressures to do something with their kids. Breakfast clubs literally exist because parents don't have time to get their kids ready, feed them, get them to school, go to work for a full day, come home, pick their kids up (When? The schools close about 3/4, so the parents have to come collect early from work or pay for extra babysitting in clubs after school finishes!), deal with them, get a good night's sleep and do it all again the next day.
What we've done is made schools the worst timing possible for the most common working pattern - both parents working 9-5. The biggest problem with lockdown was parents having to stay home to look after kids, destroying their careers and workplaces, or spending a fortune. Housing is unsustainable without two full-time wages. Schools only accept kids after parents have to leave for work and give them back before parents are leaving their workplace.
The solution is not "ban cars on school runs". That would actually make things a hundred times worse.
The solution is "schools are community centres". The schools open at a time when kids can get there and occupy them until the parents are ready. They stagger their starts and ends (because now when "school proper" starts no longer matters, if the kids are there from 7am-7pm), so the commute dies back to one-quarter of it's term-time rates. Parents have time to see their kids off, go to work, come back, pick them up, and have some semblance of life, and the kid doesn't need to be chauffered at a very particular time. School buses will not wait for a kid to get ready, or get them ready, that's just not practical. We need to make time for the parents. So they can drop off, say, anytime between 7 and 9 and not be fined for their kid being late. And pick up any time from 4-7, and not have to rush home to a lecture from the school about not picking their kid up on time.
And this needs to be PAID FOR. There is fat chance of that at the moment, but you could easily do it by paying teachers to teach during teaching hours and then go home, and then fill in with non-teaching babysitter staff to supervise children and do playground duties and all the other nonsense that a teacher has to currently do.
Eliminating school choice will just harm the children, almost directly. The problem is not the kids, the cars or the pollution. It's the modern working schedule, and penalisation and reporting parents as "neglectful" if they have to go to work and their kids get left waiting outside the school gates twice a day.
Parents are dependent on cars because of TIMING, not any other factor. Not distance, but the timing to achieve that distance sensibly. Nobody is carting their kid an hour each way each morning just for the sake of it.
We've outlawed parents who let their kids walk to school, or leave them in the house alone, or let the kid take the rap for being late to school.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday August 29 2020, @02:11AM
There's a very simple solution to all this bleakness you describe which parents must endure year in, year out:
Don't have kids!
Seriously, this sounds absolutely miserable. Why would anyone pick this lifestyle? No wonder people in developed nations aren't having kids any more: society has made it so difficult, so expensive, and so risky that it just isn't worth it.