The primary reasons the school-bus commute was long was a) meandering suburbia with only 1-2 students per stop and b) a 20 mile trek on the highway at 45mph.
If I had been able to drive (or carpooled), my commute would have been less than 35 minutes.
I guess that makes sense. It's not just "better" in the sense of different schools in an area may be better or worse, but also highly directed in certain areas. I can see the draw of that.
> meandering suburbia with only 1-2 students per stop
Yes, come to think of it, people that rode the bus at my school probably had at least a 40-45 minute ride in the earlier stops just from this. I think I rode the bus once when going to a friend's house after school, so this didn't come to mind. The rest of the time I always walked (High School was literally across the street from my house, Middle School was a 20 minute brisk walk). Like I said, alien.
Thanks for your explanation. :)
I was lucky enough to always live very close to my schools, so hours spent commuting to school is entirely alien to me, and barring safety issues, I'm not sure a directed extracurricular learning program wouldn't be more beneficial (and if the student or parents care enough to commute, I imagine they could work out some program from available sources). Then again, I've never been put in a situation that young where it relied that much on my own motivation.