Re “Longer school day plan widens” (Page A1, Dec. 3): Extending the school day or school year is one way to provide more learning time for low-income students in Massachusetts. Reducing student absences is another.
According to data from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, students in high-poverty districts such as Boston, Springfield, and Holyoke miss an average of almost three weeks of school per year, while students in wealthy suburban districts such as Boxford and Lincoln-Sudbury miss an average of only five or six days per year.
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and what kind of service do we create to get kids to school, do we knock on doors, how about Mom gets out of bed and feed her children and get them off to school, take responsibility, something we have lost in this country.
Boston is not a "high-poverty district", although parts of Boston have areas where poverty can be found. The only neighborhood that fits this description is perhaps most of Roxbury. Dorchester has some problem areas, but most of Boston is working class, not impoverished, and if the City continues to bus some 67% of the children of the working class, then maybe the City should stop wasting $100 million a year on forced busing and invest these funds instead in the restoration of the neighborhood school system by 2015. Most of the 13% Caucasian students are in the exam schools or lower grades, which leaves nothing left to integrate or desegregate from a statistical point of view. Being able to walk to school is the equivalent of a physical education class, and eliminates the problem created by missing the only bus across town; could it be that children don't want to go to school every day if they have to be up at 5am in order to ride a bus for an hour? Then enjoy the ride home?