Getting to school

It's a boring subject, perhaps, but rising diesel prices may be the straw that broke the budget's back in many school districts. Last week, gas prices increased by 18 cents nationwide, the biggest one-week increase in 15 years. One knowledgeable insider in the energy industry, Matthew Simmons, recently said:

Simmons: [O]il demand globally could easily go to 86-88 million bpd during the winter [of 2005-2006], and that could easily exceed supply by 2-5 million bpd.

[Interviewer]: If that was to happen we would almost be looking at $75-80 oil, I suspect.

Simmons: No, no, no. Oil prices could easily go up 5-10 times.

This guy is on the National Petroleum Council and the Council on Foreign Relations, and he says oil could go above $300/barrel this winter. At any rate, the price of diesel is surely going to increase, and the fuel situation is a looming crisis.

Consider the situation in Virginia:

Fairfax County has budgeted to spend 33 percent more on fuel for its 1,570 buses this school year, but that might not be enough. Its price on diesel has risen 11.5 percent since May....

The Prince George's County public school system, which operates one of the region's most extensive busing operations, spends several million dollars a year on fuel and has had to increase its fuel budget significantly in recent months....

Montgomery County public schools budgeted $4.4 million to fuel a fleet of 1,200 buses that transports 96,000 students per day, but officials worry it may not be enough....

Or in North Carolina:

North Carolina school districts are struggling with high gas prices, which will make it more difficult to keep school buses rolling when classes start in the coming weeks....

Chatham County Schools... fueled up a portion of its bus fleet Wednesday for $1.87 a gallon under a state contract for diesel fuel. But the state budgeted $1.05 per gallon for fuel purchases, and officials have told school districts statewide that local budgets will have to make up the difference.

Or in San Diego:

The Poway Unified School District, which is looking at a $120,000 increase in fuel costs, is being forced to increase the annual round trip bus pass for students to $333 a year, a 10-percent increase....

The San Diego Unified School District does not charge students to ride buses and the district is paying 80 cents more per gallon compared to this time last year....

Or in Texas:

Faced with climbing gasoline prices, some Texas school districts are finding inventive ways to save fuel costs including two districts that have eliminated hundreds of bus stops....

Schools don't pay as much for gasoline and diesel as motorists because they're exempt from state and federal taxes. But districts are still feeling the crunch.

"This is the most drastic I've ever seen it," said Nolan Anderson, executive director of transportation at the North East district.

Fuel costs in the North East School District will increase by 56 percent this year, Anderson estimated. Other districts reported increases ranging from 8 percent to 36 percent. Those estimates could increase because fuel costs are expected to increase, officials said.

In many states (probably most), schools do not have to provide busing for students living within 2 miles of the school, and often there is no legal obligation to provide busing at all to students in 7th grade or higher. (Think about a kindergartner walking 1.9 miles to school in built-up, traffic-heavy areas.) I think this story is a preview of what is to come in many districts:

About a dozen angry mothers stood on a dirt corner in Orlando's Azalea Park neighborhood early Wednesday to demand something they were being denied -- a seat on the school bus for their children....

[T]he children would have to walk past construction crews, dump trucks and speeding cars, then cross seven lanes of traffic on Semoran Boulevard to get to school....

Mothers said losing the bus rides would make it difficult to get the children to school.... [F]ew have cars....

Expecting a showdown with the moms, two district bus officials came to the stop Wednesday morning....

Administrators stood at the bus steps, telling the crowd only those who lived more than two miles from school could ride.

School officials beckoned for a few children to board -- the ones who lived more than two miles from school. The rest stood on the sidewalk of Bamboo Drive and stared.

After the children boarded, the crowd began to move. Three or four mothers and a half-dozen children walked in front of the stopped vehicle.

That's when transportation administrator Steve Huckeba changed his mind. He said all the children could ride -- but it would be the last time. Parents had been told the same thing the day before....

Every fall, some who don't qualify for bus service try to get it, said Orange transportation director Rye Merriam.

"We get those threats all the time," he said. " 'We're going to lie down in front of the bus. We're not going to let the bus pass.' We usually have to call law enforcement."

Nice. If you don't send your kids to school, we'll call law enforcement; if you try to insist on safe transportation to school via bus, we'll call law enforcement; and the alternative, if you're poor and few in your neighborhood own cars, is for your 6-year-old to walk or ride a bike 2 miles through Orlando's clogged urban sprawl. (If you've never been to the area, it is not pedestrian-friendly.)

I think we're going to see major difficulties in simply getting children to school, thanks in large part to centralization and consolidation. It's easier to control a few large schools than a bevy of small neighborhood schools, easier to impose "accountability" and kaizen management. But the smaller schools are certainly more educationally effective, due to the benefits of mixed-age classrooms, peer tutoring, smaller class sizes, and less anonymity. Here's hoping that when the fuel crisis hits-- and this isn't a temporary problem, it's Peak Oil-- it will mean a return to smaller schools and more independence.