School busing to end in Boston

All Boston school children will have the right to attend “walk-to” schools beginning in September 2006, city school officials announced this week. The new policy closes a chapter on Boston’s painful history of mandatory desegregation and brings about a goal long sought by parents, politicians, and community activists. Moreover, since busing to schools will no longer be needed, the change will save the school department more than $30 million annually in transportation costs.

“It came to me as I was shaving one morning,” said schools superintendent Thomas Payzant.  “I remembered how my father used to tell me he walked ten miles to school every day, and, boom, it hit me like a bolt of lightning, ‘Why not us?’”

After a round of meetings with members of the School Committee, the department promulgated a new policy permitting students to walk to any of the schools to which they happened to be assigned. “Worst case -- say Readville to Eastie -- it’s not even 15 miles,” said Payzant. “And in most cases, we figure it will be well under seven.”

“Even better,” said Payzant standing next to a smiling Mayor Thomas Menino, “this guy promises all the roads will be cleanly plowed during the winter. That’s much better than in my Dad’s day, when he had to make his way through five-foot snowdrifts.”

School Committee chair Dr. Elizabeth Reilinger added that another benefit of the new policy would be to reduce the degree of youth obesity, a significantly growing public health issue.

Thrilled by his success at solving Boston’s busing problem, Payzant has now turned his attention to the system’s lack of racial diversity. Currently, 86 percent of Boston's 58,600 public school students are minorities, a disturbing and sharp increase from years’ past.

“We’ve decided that from now on all Hispanic and Asian students will be designated as ‘white,’” Payzant said. “In one fell swoop, we’ll be 54% white and 46% non-white, making Boston perhaps the most evenly balanced urban school district in the country.”

“It just goes to show you,” he added, “how positive and creative thinking can solve most any problem.”