School transportation may increase student outcomes by providing a reliable and safe means of getting to and from school. Little evidence of the effects of such policies exists. In this paper, I provide some of the first causal evidence of transportation impacts on student attendance and achievement using a rich panel of student-level enrollment…

This study analyzes how bus eligibility impacts student attendance and achievement in Michigan where almost half of the largest districts limit bus transportation to students who live more than 1.5 miles from school. The study finds that while eligibility has no major effect on student attendance or achievement overall, economically disadvantaged…

Desegregation, particularly court ordered busing, has been viewed independently of the complex historic and economic factors in which these policies are rooted. By focusing on the educational aspects of a social or political change the importance of various other factors which operate outside the school but which influence school programs and…

June 1975 marks the end of the fourth year of court-ordered busing for desegregation of the Pontiac Public schools. At the end of each year of busing, a survey of parents of students in the affected grades is conducted with the purpose of assessing parental attitudes about the busing plan, their perceptions of their children's education, and for…

Concepts and methods of geography are applied to the study of school desegregation in this paper. Beginning with a spatial/temporal view of desegregation, the key legal events which have charted the course of desegregation are reviewed, and geographic patterns over time are examined. This discussion is followed by an investigation of the…

Part of a series of parent and teacher surveys, this portion of the 1975 survey provides information on the attitudes of teachers of elementary and secondary grades toward the desegregation plan and their perceptions of some of the effects that the plan has had upon children in the Pontiac schools; and information on the attitudes of the teachers…

Pontiac schools were desegregated prior to the 1971-72 school year. Annual attitude surveys have been conducted to assess the impact of desegregation on parents, students, and staff. This report presents data on the attitudes and opinions of secondary school students concerning desegregation, school structure and climate, and interpersonal…

This case study is designed to determine the structures, actors, processes, and relationships that are involved when State government in Michigan determines policy for the public schools. The report looks at an instance of policymaking in each of the issue areas of finance, desegregation, and program improvement -- in this case, State assessment.…

Measures of student satisfaction and other variables which are related to student reaction to their school are built into the design of this study, which hypothesizes that satisfaction will represent the students' global response to the learning environment, and that in turn, this global response will be related to certain performance…

Pontiac schools were desegregated prior to the 1971-72 school year. Annual attitude surveys have been conducted to assess the impact of desegregation on parents, students, and staff. Teacher attitudes reported here are based on the 1974 survey. Although some mention is made of possible trends in attitudes over the three-year period, differences in…