Policy drives bad decisions on school transportation

Door-to-door transportation for K-12 students may seem a compassionate policy from a society that values both students and education, but the state's transportation mandate to local school districts ultimately takes money from the education of kids to subsidize inefficient development. In the end, it also devalues traditional, neighborhood schools in favor of the remote, campus-style schools we now commonly build.

Nearly every school district is struggling to do more with less. Economic transformation, tightening of public budgets and an aging electorate are translating to a long period of budget cuts for public education. Improving the educational performance of our youth in an age of austerity may be our generation's defining challenge.

Minnesota currently requires school districts to provide transportation to all students in their district who live two miles or more from school. As budgets have been squeezed, districts have found creative ways to shift funding from transportation into the classroom. Such tactics have drawn the ire of some, including the bright people at Minnesota 2020, who have written a report calling for the establishment of a separate fund for busing.

But, respectfully, what if MN2020 has it wrong? What if we went the other way and shifted all transportation funding into the classroom? What if we ended the mandate for schools to provide busing? Or alternatively, what if we reversed the policy, providing transportation only to students living WITHIN two miles of school?

The MN2020 report shows that districts with neighborhood schools in higher density, walkable areas actually have a surplus in transportation money they can shift to other needs. In contrast, large rural districts and suburban/exurban districts run huge transportation deficits, taking money from the classroom to fund transportation.

How many of the students in those rural, suburban and exurban districts live and work on farms? What percentage of their parents must be located in a remote area for their livelihood? I don't know the exact answer, but experience suggests to me that it is a very small percentage -- I'd estimate less than 3 percent. The overwhelming majority live far from school due to personal preference.

This is an important observation. By mandating that school districts provide transportation to all kids more than two miles from school, regardless of any other circumstance, we have created another subsidy enabling parents to ignore the true cost of their location decisions. They can live two blocks from school or 20 miles from school; the cost to them is the same: nothing.

The cost to school districts, however, is huge. My district is budgeted to spend $3.4 million in transportation costs, roughly $500 per student. With a starting teacher in the district making roughly $41,000 in salary and benefits, we could add 80 new teachers right now if we stopped subsidizing transportation. This would represent a 20 percent increase in staffing.

For suburban, exurban and rural districts, what if we abolished the mandate that schools provide transportation to all students, but required them to continue providing it to children who live on farms (or other families whose careers require them to live in a remote location)? For those who have chosen remote living as a lifestyle preference, transportation could be provided on a fee-for-service basis.

Not only would this free up considerable sums for educating kids, it would reduce the allure of the regional mega-campus, which is a response to the transportation mandate. When transportation is a sunk cost -- money that a district has to spend, regardless - districts respond by maximizing efficiency. Locating schools in places that are equally remote from multiple towns reduces per-student transportation costs and is politically viable, but not financially sustainable for the future.

The current transportation calculus will change dramatically when fuel prices predictably rise. School administrators, parents and lawmakers will undoubtedly protest that we are forcing immense financial burdens onto schools, robbing the classrooms of funds, and that more money is needed. Other interest groups will demand that schools tamp down transportation costs, even though districts have no control over the land-use pattern that dictates these costs in the first place.

While it won't be politically easy, ending the mandate that suburban, exurban and rural school districts provide socialized transportation is one way we can do much more with less.

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Charles Marohn is a professional engineer and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. He is president of Strong Towns, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that describes its mission as "to support a model for growth that allows America's towns to become financially strong and resilient." He is a source in MPR's Public Insight Network.

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