[X] Ted Dunlap – governor

You get what you pay for.

Half the income tax collected by the state pays to haul kids to and from huge centralized schools. After 13 years of school, we graduate 17-year-olds who know how to ride a bus.

I grew up walking and riding my bike to school, not to mention wandering the woods and developed areas with my dog or on my bike. Without giving it any thought at all, I developed that part of my brain responsible for navigation. I could be, and often was ten to thirty miles from home at mid-day, yet never late getting home in the evening.

When I was “learning to hunt” in the Rockies from 3 Utahns, time came to return to the trucks and all three wanted to head in one direction. The “California boy” insisted on going the opposite direction – which took us straight to the pickups. (Yeah, I know, my teachers were plumb stupid to be wandering around with no map and no compass.)

The point is that navigation ability is not practiced sitting in the back of the bus. What is practiced:
Placidly sitting around in the crowd
Obedience to a central authority
Wait until you are told to perform
Arriving to a bus stop early to wait for authorities to take you to your assigned station

I know we have many wonderful reasons to send our kids to all of these different schools. I simply challenge you to think about this one aspect of our tax-funded school system for a moment.
What good does the bussing do?
What harm does it do?
What is the monetary cost?
What is the cultural cost?
What does it do to the individual children?
What does it do to the families?