For thousands of Detroit families, the daily trek begins in darkness, before dawn.
Myesha Williams, a mother of eight on Detroit’s west side, sets out at 7 a.m. to deliver her three school-aged sons to three different schools on opposite ends of the city—and she considers herself lucky. She has a car and a large family that can help share the driving.
Total daily journey: up to 93.5 miles, 3 hours.
Monique Johnson starts her trek even earlier, just after 6 a.m. when she and her son Shownn, a 13-year-old eighth-grader, catch a ride to a bus stop eight blocks from their home in the city’s Brightmoor neighborhood. There are closer stops, Johnson said, but they’re pitch black at that hour—and dangerous.
...Total daily journey: 52 miles, five to six hours.
Like many big cities, Detroit has shuttered scores of traditional neighborhood schools in favor of charter schools and public-school magnet programs. Detroit kids can also attend schools in suburban districts. But many of the city’s new options do not provide transportation, and new schools are often far from where kids live—a serious challenge in a city where a quarter of families have no access to a car and where the public-transit system is woefully insufficient.
That means some families, like Williams’s and Johnson’s, make extreme sacrifices to access quality schools. Work gets neglected; personal obligations go unmet; children miss sleep and lose ground in class by too often showing up late.
To continue reading this article by Erin Einhorn, go to: http://www.theatlantic.com/edu...tter-schools/477585/
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