A Vision for Boston:
Questions for the 2009 Mayoral Candidates

Day 12: Student Transportation

How would you change the school assignment and student transportation options for the city with the objective of satisfying parental demands and achieving savings?

Response from Councilor Flaherty:

I’ve always supported the idea of children going to a school near their home and making schools a real part of the neighborhood. But I’m also a strong advocate for equal educational opportunities and presently, a return to a neighborhood school system won’t achieve such equality. We need to work towards a school system where everyone’s neighborhood school becomes their number one choice school. However, that won’t happen overnight as we have too many neighborhoods with high concentrations of underperforming schools. A transformed school system that provides educational equality requires bold leadership, collaboration among all parties and the incorporation of best practices working in other urban school districts across the country.

At the same time, we must determine how we can reign in transportation costs that are bankrupting BPS and taking precious dollars away from the classroom. Even if we overlook the fact that we spend $78 million because we haven’t figured out a better way to provide quality public education in all of our neighborhoods, we cannot overlook the fact that this spending crisis perfectly illustrates the city’s mismanagement with taxpayers’ money. A sweeping review of routes, age of fleet, bell schedules, and fuel efficiencies must be