Federal Law Now Says Kids Can Walk To School Alone (fastcoexist.com)

An anonymous reader writes: There's some good news for "free-range" parents and fans of children being allowed to walk places on their own. A recently approved federal education law will allow students to take alternative forms of transportation to and from school with parental permission. Fastcoexist reports: "Relax, parents. Now you can allow your kids to walk, ride a bike, or take a bus to school, without you or your children getting arrested. The recently-signed Every Student Succeeds Act contains a section (858) that protects the rights of kids to walk or go out alone. The act was sponsored by Utah senator Mike Lee, who is a supporter of the Free Range Kids movement, and provides some hope for parents who feel that their kids should be allowed some autonomy to get by own their own." One can only hope that children will be allowed to go to the park on their own soon as well.

Comments

In Switzerland, they pretty much have to, by law

[ControlFreal]

In Switzerland (at least in my home Canton of Zurich), the children's way to school ("Schulweg") is pretty much sacred: Walking to school alone teaches the children to deal with the world around them, and it builds confidence. During the first year of Kindergarten you can bring them, but then they go alone.

When children live too far away from school, there is a bus service, but they make a point of letting the children off the bus some 1000ft from school, so that they still have their "Schulweg."

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Rockoon]

This is something that the state should decide.

Or we could go more narrow and have counties decide.

Taking this narrowing idea further its the cities and towns that should decide.,

Taking this narrowing idea to its conclusion and its the parents that decide.

Now according to the federal government, the parents now decide.

This is exactly the kind of law that should be federal. The federal government should always be allowed to demand that its up to the people.

Obligatory "when I was a kid" post.

[gfxguy]

I walked to elementary school every day until we moved farther away, at which point I alternatively either road my bike or took the bus (and occasionally walked anyway). That continued through middle and high school, and that was up in NY.

Now it's 40 years or so later, I live in GA, and my kids are not allowed to ride their bikes to school. Walkers at my daughter's middle school require permits that they have to pay a fee for.

It's ridiculous.

At the same time, for whatever reason, walking to Elementary school was just fine, and walking to the high school is fine... so it's obviously up to individual school. If you're planning on having kids, and can't afford private schools, do yourself a favor and DO NOT move to GA.

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[LynnwoodRooster]

The root problem is that crime rates have dramatically declined, yet we have more police than ever before. So we have too many cops with not enough "real" crime to deal with, so they just hassle people instead. People need to understand that more cops leads to more crime, not less, and stop voting for increases in policing,

Not enough "real crime" for the police to work with? In the U.S? How about getting rid of the mafia? Gangsters in general?

Good luck with that when the mafia writes the laws itself, and sit with impunity, out in the open, in Washington DC...

Re:Unconstitutional

[khallow]

those powers ARE RESERVED BY THE STATES.

Let's look at the actual Tenth Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Here, you forgot a very important party, the people. I think walking to school is exercise of a people power not a state-granted privilege. Personally, I don't think the federal government has a place in education, K-12 or higher education, except as a sponsor and propagator of educational standards (which I think is a legitimate role of the Commerce Clause). But they do have a role as a protector of the people which I think this law imperfectly attempts.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[sociocapitalist]

because society places a premium on girls. Boys and men are generally considered to be comparatively disposable. This has deep roots in survival instincts.

A tribe that suffers the loss of to many young women would be unable to propagate itself, efficiently. The harm from that could last generations. The loss of almost all the young males however could be more easily survived. Older males remain fertile longer than females, and one male can easily impregnate large numbers of women. Its pretty simple really.

Our instincts are what they are. We generally instinctively protect all of our children pretty enthusiastically. Giving into our more base desires to afford our female offspring a little extra safety is probably harmless. We have plenty of other instincts that don't fit the environment most of us live in to focus on fighting.

Depends on which society you're talking about. There is a severe dearth of girl babies in both China and India, relative to the population. My no doubt imperfect understanding is that in China this is largely because of the old one child law where boys would be earners and so were more desirable than girl babies, and in India where Hindu requires a boy for the death rites of the parents in addition to the boys being earners.
http://www.scientificamerican....
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...

Re: This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Generally speaking, there are two possibilities for what happens to a child on the way to school: something bad or nothing bad. [I'm being REALLY general here, but I think the conclusions drawn from this simple exercise apply even if you introduced more complexity by adding additional cases.]

There are two possibilities for what a police officer can do: stop the child or not stop the child.

In the "Something bad", "Stop the child" case the officer may prevent harm to the child. This is a positive outcome.
In the "Something bad", "Not stop the child" case the public tees off on the police in general and the officer in particular. "Why didn't you do your job???" Negative.
In the "Nothing bad", "Stop the child" case at worst the officer gets accused of interfering with the parents' right to allow their child to walk. At worst, mild negative.
In the "Nothing bad", "Not stop the child" case nothing happens. Neutral.

So if the officer chooses to stop the child, at worst they get the public mildly disapproving of his or her actions. If they choose NOT to stop the child, at worst they get dragged over hot coals by the court of public opinion, sued, etc. From the officer's perspective, mild disapproval is a MUCH more attractive alternative than torches, pitchforks, and/or lawsuits and so their dominant strategy is to stop the child.

Or the tl;dr version: cover their asses in case something bad would have happened to the kid.

Re:This was _outlawed_ in the USA?

[LaurenCates]

Disclaimer: I am a woman who grew up in the ghetto.

Catcalling may be distasteful, but it isn't threatening in and of itself.

If you catcall me and you stay put when I walk away, it isn't a threat.

If you catcall me and follow me in your truck for a couple blocks, I'm bound to duck into a store or veer towards somewhere I know where people are at. And I don't normally walk alone at night where there aren't people.

If your wife feels like a steak "lying" in front of hyenas, perhaps she needs to adjust her perspective to determine whether or not she's going to be attacked. I sincerely hope she hasn't, and you haven't indicated that she has been.

But let's not go overboard. If a bunch of men are hooting at you but aren't doing anything to directly endanger your safety, get a grip. If you think being "ogled" is a problem, never leave the house, so such a "threat" never befalls you.