Regarding the current school assignment process - where parents have a choice, is a matter of much contention. The current policy is that parents can choose where to send their children - however, the first choice may not be available so they go to other schools on their list or maybe schools not on their list. What needs to be examined is that Boston still has (after school building reduction) approx. 100 schools serving the children of Boston. The current BPS school census - a little under 50,000 students attend these schools - many of whom travel throughout the city in school buses at a annual cost to the taxpayers of 80 million dollars. That's right, 10% of the overall school budget of close to 800 million dollars which is close to 1/3 of the total operating city budget of 2.4 billion spent in BPS transportation costs.

The buses transport students form one end of the city to the other - why can't students be assigned to schools close to their neighborhood? Is it because certain schools have better services than others? If so, then all BPS schools should be brought up to the same standards. Children deserve a quality education regardless of what area of the city they live and therefore their local schools should provide this. Parents shouldn't have to requesting schools far removed from their neighborhood because their local school is not acceptable. Children should be going to their local schools providing quality education. Of course, should certain programs be available only in certain schools, then exceptions would have to be considered.

With approx. $80 million in savings, look at how many teachers can be teaching in the classroom. Taxpayer’s dollars The Boston Public School's budget should be spent on education NOT transportation.