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The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

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Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#241

Post by FireBeyond »

mmooss wrote: post #165
bink wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really dislike it when Japan is brought up as a comparison with the US, especially when it comes to crime or schooling. The cultures, poverty levels, and crime rates are so vastly different that it's never helpful.

Maybe they are so different because you (and others) won't try to learn from different cultures. If not, probably nothing will change.

America has an obsession with being different and has a thousand answers to why things that work elsewhere would not and could not possibly work here. It's the size, if it's not the size, it's the density, if it's not the density it's ... repeat ad nauseam.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#242

Post by peterbecich »

aqme28 wrote: post #156
Aurornis wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an entire section and even a chart in the article that explains why this is different now In 1969 only about 30% of kids lived too far away from school for walking to be a realistic option. In 2009 (and today) that numbers is around 80%. Walking to and from school is great if you can do it. Most people cannot do it.

why are schools farther away now? That's interesting.

I disagree it is caused by sub-urbanization or zoning. Housing tracts are built with schools.

I would argue the primary cause is an attempt at "school optimization"; the choice to attend the "better" school over the closer school. Also, standardization of schools has decreased with the great variety of charter, private and magnet schools now, increasing the reasons to skip the local school. Personally, I think standardization is best. You could make the same argument about how people choose colleges.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#243

Post by bsder »

aklemm wrote: post #5

Well that headline sums it up. After 10 years of dealing with it and wondering "how the f did we get to this point", it's satisfying to hear it called what it is. A small win in our family was in my son's final year of elementary school when he finally decided to try walking home 1.5 miles; that Spring was a delight for him. He was properly decompressed and had logged a minimum amount of physical activity for good sl…

> After 10 years of dealing with it and wondering "how the f did we get to this point"

While it's a lot of parental idiocy, please do consider that lack of enforcement action around bullying is also part of the answer.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#244

Post by bluGill »

ryandrake wrote: post #34
technothrasher wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just letting the kids out en mass is how my son's school worked until Covid. Then they went to the call out the car as it arrives system as you describe, and they never went back. It is so much worse. Thankfully, my son drives himself to school now so I don't have to deal with it any longer.

I've never heard of this call-out system. It sounds like how you'd run a prison Our schools just open the doors and the kids run to the cars.

The pre-school my youngest has this. The middle school my oldest goes to is much more relaxed. I'm fine with treating my 4 year old like she can't be trusted to run around alone, but my 11 year old can.

What I'm not fine with is there is no bus service for the 4 year old, we have to drive her (I bike, but it isn't a great route - we have to cross a busy 4 lane)

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#245

Post by haswell »

This is a good piece that is undermined somewhat by the AI imagery. My goal isn't to just complain about AI, but I've been reflecting on how my own mental process unfolded while reading this.

> Note: I used AI to create this image rather than pull one from another site without permission.

I don't have kids, and while I've seen pickup lines from time to time, I have very little first-hand experience with them. So my brain reacts to the image:

- Is this image a realistic representation?

- If it is, I have no first-hand knowledge to verify it

- If it's not, I have no way to know without going and looking for images myself

- If it is, it's undermining the content by representing something real with something fake

Artwork/illustrations/visualizations are often critical when communicating via text. But I think that when someone is writing about a factual matter - a real phenomenon that is occurring regularly - using fake imagery is just the wrong choice.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#246

Post by Suppafly »

technothrasher wrote: post #19
giarc wrote: post #4

I think this article misses the one big problem (as I understand it). It's that schools need to dismiss the kid to their parent. I have family in North Carolina and I understand that cars have the family number displayed, and someone with a radio communicates to the school staff "Car 315 is here", they then find that kid and dismiss them. Just do away with that. When the bell rings, send the kids outside and they wil…

Just letting the kids out en mass is how my son's school worked until Covid. Then they went to the call out the car as it arrives system as you describe, and they never went back. It is so much worse. Thankfully, my son drives himself to school now so I don't have to deal with it any longer.

>Just letting the kids out en mass is how my son's school worked until Covid.

My kids school worked like that and it was still a mess, primarily because the parents were too stupid to follow the rules as to how to park their cars. I was set up so that everyone parked in parallel rows ||||| but the ones on the right were closest to the exit, so a bunch of people would pull into those rows to the point that they'd wrap around behind the other rows ___| and prevent people from getting into those rows. It was stupid and the school would send out notices and have employees walk down to the end of the row and tell people to move to the next one but it never stayed fixed.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#247

Post by Suppafly »

ryandrake wrote: post #22

An odd choice of dates in the charts: 1969, 2009, 2017, 2022. 40 years between the first two and less than ten between the other ones. I would have liked to see more uniform spacing between the first two to understand whether the change across those 40 years was gradual. Our family suffers this insanity, too. This is one of the few things my spouse absolutely refuses to budge on: she won't let our child walk, bicycle…

I know those gaps are often due to the data coming from different sources and it's not always possible to normalize it and what not, but I'm always super suspicious when they do that. Also when you see results that are like 1953-1986, like maybe the results from 1952 and 1987 invalidate whatever point they want to make, so they used only the section that helps their case.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#248

Post by bluGill »

jerlam wrote: post #111
chungy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, and just let kids walk home. It's good for their muscles.

Many of them can't walk home from school. As the article says, most students now live too far away from school (greater than three miles), and many rural/suburban areas have underdeveloped sidewalks and traffic systems. If three miles sounds like not a big deal, it certainly is when you have short legs, a backpack full of books, and uncooperative weather. I was lucky enough to walk to/from school for most of my schoo…

Where I live all schools must provide bus service for kids more than 1 mile away, or if the route to school crosses a busy road. Some kids to get a city bus pass, but the yellow school bus is common. I know other states do it differently.

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#249

Post by tacticalturtle »

rdtsc wrote: post #162
mmooss wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone here should watch the Japanese TV series, Old Enough! . 2-4 year olds are sent out on their own to run errands, etc. Yes, really, 2-4 years old. And they succeed and are fine. https://www.ntv.co.jp/english/pc/2011/02/old-enough.html

That wouldn't work in US until the whole culture changes. An individual family may do this, and then someone will call child protective services because there is a lost, unaccompanied child. Happened to my coworker: kids were playing outside and a neighbor called the authorities on them. Not clear if they really thought the kids were in danger, or just did it out of spite, but what ensued was a nightmare of CPS calli…

I understand that’s terrifying in the moment to have CPS at your door, but maybe the erroneous CPS visit is a one time cost we have to pay to change the culture, until CPS learns to ignore phone calls with no more details other than “children are outside”. If they don’t learn to ignore them - that sounds like lawsuit territory

Change requires someone that doesn’t accept the status quo

(I don’t have kids, but hope to have some in the future, so this is me talking out of turn)

Re: The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment

#250

Post by EA-3167 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #214
EA-3167 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "US" where something like this is normalized, it's down to region, weather, urbanization and perception of safety. I grew up walking and biking to school because I was lucky enough to live in a nice suburb close to my school. For people who need to take a 20 minute *drive* to school obviously that isn't feasible. The US is a massive country with a huge number of different climates and layouts, which is pa…

> I grew up walking and biking to school because I was lucky enough to live in a nice suburb close to my school So did I. Have you been back? The kids in my school are dropped off when I biked.

Yeah, they're still walking/biking. I live in a state where I see kids walking to and from school all of the time.
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