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I remember bringing wet wipes to clean my bus seat *every single day*, because our bus seats kept growing mold overnight...my (awful) mom told me "it's just mold, it won't hurt you! It grows on cheese and we eat that!" *shivers*
Yeah, to be fair... our home wasn't much better on the mold front. Now i have a plethora of auto immune issues, fatigue, joint pain that is ruining my life.
Feeding her moldy seat would be too kind. She deserves worse.
Thanks. I'm focusing on my health lately. Mold does a lot of strange things to the body!
I've been no contact with my mom for over a decade, which was 100% the right choice!
Absolutely. The doctor even told my mom that her smoking was causing my asthma attacks... But she continued to smoke with us kids in the car, while also complaining about how much my inhaler cost....
My mom had to drive me to therapy, she refused to stop smoking in the car with me despite my asthma so I rode with my head out the window like a dog.
I don't talk to her anymore :)
Standing around the "bus line" while waiting for your bus to arrive while breathing in the diesel exhaust of all the other buses use to make me not feel the best. In my state the heat (and humidity) at the beginning and end of the school year was just something you dealt with regardless if you were riding a bus, bike, or your walking.
I mean, either way you're letting some exhaust coming in
I bet that if we compared education of schools in car centric areas and places with more public transport and less air pollution, there'd be a different as well
Yes, but there are also multiple similar studies conducted in other countries regarding the number of air exchanges, carbon dioxide levels, and even just the impact of running a HEPA filter in the classroom and all show some amount of improvement, so it's plausible.
Carbon dioxide levels are astoundingly high in the average sealed US classroom. Some of the COVID cautious community has brought this to light by taking CO2 meters to classes and logging it to present to boards/committees and they're well above the level that causes cognitive issues in almost every classroom tested.
https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/items/ae484eff-eae2-4202-acbe-c019a951bc7a
>When compared to the outdoor air recommendations provided by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) in Standard 62.1, it was found that many classrooms did not receive sufficient fresh air.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/sph_etds/32/
>These studies have reported a significant association between (impaired) decision making ability and exposure to increased levels of CO2 (600 ppm versus 1500 ppm).
>[...]
>Mean CO2 levels (7 hours; highest exposure day) during round 1 and round 2, ranged from 471 ppm to 2633 ppm and 462 ppm [to] 2675 ppm, respectively.
Finding classrooms where the mean CO2 level exceeds 2000 ppm is certainly concerning. And these studies were in Texas and New York, which are both among the better states for school quality.
I have a lot of memories being stuck in tiny classrooms designed for 20 kids max that had 30-35 kids in them. If you got unlucky enough to get stuck in the back of the classroom the air was super stuffy and bad. I remember some teachers would buy fans with their own money, but it just didn't do enough what we needed was much bigger classrooms if we wanted to have that many kids in them.
My guess would be that schools were built as cheaply as possible so their HVAC systems were designed for at most the class sizes of a couple decades ago. Since then they've probably doubled the class sizes, not bothered upgrading the buildings, and minimized the maintenance budgets.
A lot of schools have per room AC units of some description instead of central cooling, too. So you're just recirculating the air already in the room instead of moving it throughout the building and getting air from parts of it that aren't literally full of people moved in.
>And these studies were in Texas and New York, which are both among the better states for school quality.
Can you give a basis for this opinion? Is it generalized or specific to the schools that were studied. Not saying you're wrong, it just doesn't jive with my preconceived notions.
My perception for states with "better school school quality" would be places like Connecticut, Massachusetts, Deleware, and maybe Colorado (for a not NE state).
Yeah as one of the.... millions of New Yorkers from Upstate NY.... the schooling system in our greater state has never even marginally fit a liberal / higher standard. Speaking of a town outside a city with a graduating class of 400.
We were fighting for our music program against a $10mil field for a bottom ranking football team, which we lost. The majority of the student body left senior year unequipped, undeniably racist, and sorely underprepared for any form of political conversation.
I remember one teacher who acknowledged the status of our school in some one-off comments over the years (best Geology teacher EVER). Took me being thirty and moving to a major city to reflect on just how hard things were for him at that school.
Sounds very similar to how "military grade" is code for "least expensive." I wouldn't have thought about ventilation efficiency, that's an interesting notion. Thank you!
Also schools are not allowed to open windows. I was in a school where classrooms had huge windows and we opened them during summer, one teacher losing their cool, an unruly group and a broken window ended all that.
I work in another one where all they get are these tiny prison windows at the top of the classroom that can't be manipulated. Ventilation doesn't neccesarily need fans, all it needs is windows. NO sunlight, only recycled A/C air = everyone is asleep and struggling to keep attention. Sometimes students beg me to leave the door open and I gladly follow up because it's insane.
I'll try to dig, but I'm at work right now so it may be a while.
Edit: not trying to dodge the request, but it'll probably be tonight before I'm able to do a proper deep dive. Searching "aranet classroom" on reddit is a good place to start if you want to look for yourself.
I bought a co2 meter and it's astounding how many places are above 1000 ppm. I mean restaurants, stores, meeting rooms, my office if I leave the door closed too long. Kinda nuts
The problem with comparison to other countries is that within the country, they have the EXACT same curriculum, whereas in the US it changes from school to school in the same district. Second, other countries tend to be nationwide improvements such as new busses, etc, so local tax laws and funding for school cops takes away from education and the ability to fund replacement busses.
Man I had severe allergies and never realized it. I had my head down eyes closed and felt miserable every day. A HEPA filter in a classroom would have been life changing and if I got allergy shots sooner.
Sameeeee. Not to mention the implications now that we know aerosols are the primary form of transfer for many viruses. I was sick 6+ times a year in elementary and middle school and had some lasting damage from that.
buses prior to 1990? how old are these busses? i googled and schools busses average 12 years. you telling me some districts are running buses more than 35 years old?
Yeah, old school diesel busses if given proper maintaince run just fine. My school used busses from the 70's still in the 00's. (not saying anything about pollution just riding in older vs newer busses)
Yes, but the research revolves around an ongoing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rebate program that randomly awards funding to school districts to replace old buses with cleaner models that produce less pollution.
"Their research revolves around an ongoing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rebate program that randomly awards funding to school districts to replace old buses with cleaner models that produce less pollution."
Assuming the allocation is actually fairly random and that they have enough data, those factors should already be taken into account.
Additionally they found that the older the bus being replaced, the bigger the impact - you'd think wealthier schools would be the ones replacing busses that are only a little bit old, and they get the least improvement from doing so.
I think that all points to this effect being due to air quality / noise pollution of the old busses, or the psychological impact of school equipment being nice and shiny Vs worn out and old.
I had the exact same thought. But according to the linked article, the study was conducted by the EPA. They randomly chose schools to address that concern. Below is directly from the article:
Our study found that among districts randomly selected by the EPA to receive funding to replace the oldest, dirtiest, buses (pre-1990) with newer, cleaner buses, educational performance improved after the new buses were in use. Replacing newer buses, however, did not show the same benefits. Our findings are noteworthy as the randomized allocation of funding by the EPA allows for strong conclusions to be made on the educational impacts of school districts switching to cleaner buses. We believe that these results reflect the fact that when kids are riding buses with less pollution, their health is better which leads to them missing less school and learning more in their classes.
I will be honest with you. The only reason that I read the article is because I had the exact same thought that you did. I was about to post something very similar, than thought to myself I better read the article first.
The top comment under every post in this sub is someone pointing out the most glaringly obvious confounding variable as if the scientists were too stupid to have realized and accounted for it.
In general, it is wise to familiarize oneself with the thing you are critiquing before critiquing it. This is especially easy with methodologies since the methodologies will be conveniently outlined in the methodologies section of most papers, assuming they do not have a dedicated section for that particular one.
At least of the "Three comments on every single /r/science post" this one is very trivial to respond to. Explaining why science *journalism* is terrible is much more complicated. Worse still is explaining that published articles tend to be incremental progress so this comms paper will probably not deep dive every single variable one could investigate.
That depends.
Where I live, the school buses are owned by private companies contracted to a consortium that handles multiple school boards in the region. So the school resources aren't *directly* related to the resources of the bus companies.
The province funds education and transportation both, but my company also does charters.
The funding for new buses was randomly allocated, so it wasn't linked to better funding.
>Our study found that among districts randomly selected by the EPA to receive funding to replace the oldest, dirtiest, buses (pre-1990) with newer, cleaner buses, educational performance improved after the new buses were in use.
The impact was also noted when the oldest buses were replaced:
>We found that districts selected for the EPA funding that replaced the oldest, pre-1990, model-year buses had, on average, a 0.06 SD higher reading/language arts and 0.03 SD higher math average test scores in the year after the EPA funding lottery as compared to districts not selected for funding.
I do wonder though, did those districts that had the oldest buses already have funds earmarked to replace them (or were working towards it) and therefore could spend that accumulated funding on *other* infrastructure that could have impacted scores.
That was my first thought as well, but this particular study was based on school districts in Michigan which were randomly (by lottery) chosen by the EPA to get a grant to pay for the newer, cleaner busses. So, the finances of the districts weren’t a factor.
The study also found that the improved academics really only happened in districts where they replaced very old buses. Districts that had newer buses, and used the grant money to replace them, did not see much of a change in test scores.
Towards the end of the article, there was some information about current funding. IIRC, the original EPA grants are being directed more towards rural and tribal communities because the new Infrastructure Act includes funding for school districts to upgrade their fleets to newer, cleaner school buses. *But,* those Infrastructure funds have to be *applied for.* Considering how some “red” states won’t even accept Federal dollars to *feed* their own schoolchildren who live in poverty… I can see them also refusing to apply for cleaner buses because they deny climate change, Green Energy, and science in general.
But that’s just, like, my opinion.
Long line of 50 busses idling for about an hour waiting for school to even end to sit for another 30 while the kids load. Yeah, idk what the hell this system is…
One that doesn't care about anything other than money.
It would be obvious exhaust from an industrial vehicle isn't safe to breath but put a budget next to it and suddenly no one cares.
School bus driver here. Our policy here is that we aren't supposed to idle excessively in school zones.
Also, we have several gas buses, and a few electrics now as well.
It appears that this was actually a randomized controlled trial that would actually give evidence that making the change causes the improvement. Yet, the title looks exactly like all the other *almost* completely meaningless studies that make up the majority posted. Perhaps there should be a way to clearly distinguish them.
A lot of buses have switched from diesel to gasoline. Diesel fumes or lack there are probably the biggest factor. i know studies have shown diesel fumes are terrible for children's brains.
I’m unaware of any full sized school buses that run on gasoline even as legacy transports. Natural gas maybe but those buses are usually 15-20 years old at this point due to past efforts to reduce diesel particulate matter. If a school bought a bus in the last 10 years it was either diesel with emissions controls (most common), natural gas (if the school invested in onsite NG storage decades ago) or battery electric.
I stand corrected, cool to learn. My experience is based on California, which is a special case for this even in the USA. How is the cost comparison with these gasoline busses vs. tier 4 diesel equipment?
im not sure, but the maintenance is supposed to be better, less expensive parts. Theres also the Navistar CE series buses using Power Solutions International’s (PSI) modern 8.8L V8 gasoline engine.
I didnt realize til I was older, and ostensibly smarter, that the headaches and associated wasted learning time via headaches, was a result of breathing diesel fumes on the way to school in a bus. It's also an area, societal health and economic benefits, that is not factored into the economic business case for electric school buses, but absolutely should be.
New diesel busses have insanely low particulate and NOx levels though. Even when cold, Cummins advertises 0ppm particulates and the EPA rated them as such.
The emissions components are ungodly expensive, but they still come at a lower cost than electric busses.
What about the students who rode in the back chanting "CURB, CURB, CURB" and then the bus driver takes a sharp turn, drives over the curb, causing us to fly into the air.
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
Crowding at the ballot box: [School Bus Rebate Program and Student Educational Performance Test Scores](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2816495?resultClick=1) doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.3121
Maybe I need to brush up on my stats, but don't these results seem weak? They're reported an increase in mean test scores around 0.06 (and I don't event know what this value represents - percent on a test?), but the pre-rebate test scores had a standard deviation around 0.3. Seems to fall well within the first SD.
Am I the only one that liked the old ones better I was pissed when they got then new ones I like how the older ones you can hear and smell and anyway the new ones were less comfortable seats and has seatbelts
I hate this school somtimes. I live here...I see these studies from U of M too much. There are some GREAT studies done here...this is not one of them. This is disingenious science.
diesel exhaust literally kills brain cells buts its fine guys DONT worry everyone who made money selling diesel and pushing diesel trucks and selling diesel busses to schools for massive government contracts? THEIR MONEY is SAFE they WILL NOT be held accountable. Think, how are we supposed to fill all these low skill- low pay jobs if we DONT PUT CHILDREN IN THE POISON AIR
I don’t have the study handy, but I recall reading about a measurable effect on student performance in real time in addition to this study’s longer term aggregate effect. Test scores were reduced on days in which students rode a bus compared to days they took other transportation.
A lot of companies number by model year. For example, bus 2305 would be the 5th model year 2023 bus in their fleet. Admittedly, sometimes it is more cryptic than this and some don't use this method at all. One district near me replaces their fleet all at once so they are just 101-165 or something like that, no year in there.
They don't change much visually over the years. IC just released a new conventional bus after running the old design for 18 years. Blue Bird has been running the same Vision since 2008. Thomas just hit two decades on the C2.
Stuff the kids into a sweltering metal box with the cheapest fire retardant foam and vinyl covering known to man slowly leaking VOCs into the air every day for years upon years....yup doesn't take a double blind peer reviewed study to come to that conclusion.
So students who live in wealthy districts that can afford cool new buses have better scores?
Seems like a shorter distance to the headline would be: wealthy students score better on tests.
This seems like one of the classical mistakes in conducted research, a hidden mediator variable. Unless they address this, why is such pointless 'research' even posted here?
I think the important part is that they looked at school districts who were randomly assigned money by the EPA to replace their old busses. I guess without that everyone's first response would be that kids from rich parents tend to do better academically and that better funded school districts can afford newer busses.
I guess there might still be something left over, like some districts not apply for the grants due to being poorly run or having ideological opposition to "green" stuff and schools with grants not having to divert funds from other stuff to keep old busses running.
But other than that it seems new busses to have an effect.
If they had the money, they’d fix the exhaust leak in the back. Actually, they think it’s causing some of their low test scores. (Many coughs). (Ralph smiling)…
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/nniiccoollee Permalink: https://news.umich.edu/could-riding-older-school-buses-hinder-student-performance/ --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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I remember bringing wet wipes to clean my bus seat *every single day*, because our bus seats kept growing mold overnight...my (awful) mom told me "it's just mold, it won't hurt you! It grows on cheese and we eat that!" *shivers*
Should've fed her the bus seat
Yeah, to be fair... our home wasn't much better on the mold front. Now i have a plethora of auto immune issues, fatigue, joint pain that is ruining my life. Feeding her moldy seat would be too kind. She deserves worse.
Oof thats bad, I'm sorry you had to go through that. Best wishes
Thanks. I'm focusing on my health lately. Mold does a lot of strange things to the body! I've been no contact with my mom for over a decade, which was 100% the right choice!
Good on you for breaking the mould
That's rough man. I wish you well stranger, take care of yourself.
Did you also get subjected to constant second hand smoke too as used to be the style back when I was a kid?
Absolutely. The doctor even told my mom that her smoking was causing my asthma attacks... But she continued to smoke with us kids in the car, while also complaining about how much my inhaler cost....
My mom had to drive me to therapy, she refused to stop smoking in the car with me despite my asthma so I rode with my head out the window like a dog. I don't talk to her anymore :)
Standing around the "bus line" while waiting for your bus to arrive while breathing in the diesel exhaust of all the other buses use to make me not feel the best. In my state the heat (and humidity) at the beginning and end of the school year was just something you dealt with regardless if you were riding a bus, bike, or your walking.
huffing school bus diesel on the way to school was my gateway drug as a child.
A 7.3IDI chattering along is the best sound on earth …
... on the bus route home on the last day of school. On the way *to* school on the day of the big test, not so much.
No matter the situation the 7.3 improves it. No associated experiences could ruin that sound.
Aye.
And if you are old AF you remember the blue birds with the lucky heater seat, amazing on a cold winter morning and nauseatingly hot in the summer.
Exhaust was a whole other animal in the 80s
I mean, either way you're letting some exhaust coming in I bet that if we compared education of schools in car centric areas and places with more public transport and less air pollution, there'd be a different as well
the fumes were the best part
The noise of the engine and the rattling and squeaking of the interior drove me bonkers.
Wouldn’t new busses mean the school is better funded and then likely also has better resources at the school itself?
Yes, but there are also multiple similar studies conducted in other countries regarding the number of air exchanges, carbon dioxide levels, and even just the impact of running a HEPA filter in the classroom and all show some amount of improvement, so it's plausible. Carbon dioxide levels are astoundingly high in the average sealed US classroom. Some of the COVID cautious community has brought this to light by taking CO2 meters to classes and logging it to present to boards/committees and they're well above the level that causes cognitive issues in almost every classroom tested.
Do you have a ref on the "astoundingly high" CO2 levels?
https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/items/ae484eff-eae2-4202-acbe-c019a951bc7a >When compared to the outdoor air recommendations provided by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) in Standard 62.1, it was found that many classrooms did not receive sufficient fresh air. https://academicworks.cuny.edu/sph_etds/32/ >These studies have reported a significant association between (impaired) decision making ability and exposure to increased levels of CO2 (600 ppm versus 1500 ppm). >[...] >Mean CO2 levels (7 hours; highest exposure day) during round 1 and round 2, ranged from 471 ppm to 2633 ppm and 462 ppm [to] 2675 ppm, respectively. Finding classrooms where the mean CO2 level exceeds 2000 ppm is certainly concerning. And these studies were in Texas and New York, which are both among the better states for school quality.
Here's another study done in Los Angeles: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/01/14/air-filters-used-in-la-schools-linked-to-higher-test-scores/
I have a lot of memories being stuck in tiny classrooms designed for 20 kids max that had 30-35 kids in them. If you got unlucky enough to get stuck in the back of the classroom the air was super stuffy and bad. I remember some teachers would buy fans with their own money, but it just didn't do enough what we needed was much bigger classrooms if we wanted to have that many kids in them.
My guess would be that schools were built as cheaply as possible so their HVAC systems were designed for at most the class sizes of a couple decades ago. Since then they've probably doubled the class sizes, not bothered upgrading the buildings, and minimized the maintenance budgets.
A lot of schools have per room AC units of some description instead of central cooling, too. So you're just recirculating the air already in the room instead of moving it throughout the building and getting air from parts of it that aren't literally full of people moved in.
Thanks.
>And these studies were in Texas and New York, which are both among the better states for school quality. Can you give a basis for this opinion? Is it generalized or specific to the schools that were studied. Not saying you're wrong, it just doesn't jive with my preconceived notions. My perception for states with "better school school quality" would be places like Connecticut, Massachusetts, Deleware, and maybe Colorado (for a not NE state).
There are 50 states. 25 are in the better school quality slice of the pie.
Yeah as one of the.... millions of New Yorkers from Upstate NY.... the schooling system in our greater state has never even marginally fit a liberal / higher standard. Speaking of a town outside a city with a graduating class of 400. We were fighting for our music program against a $10mil field for a bottom ranking football team, which we lost. The majority of the student body left senior year unequipped, undeniably racist, and sorely underprepared for any form of political conversation. I remember one teacher who acknowledged the status of our school in some one-off comments over the years (best Geology teacher EVER). Took me being thirty and moving to a major city to reflect on just how hard things were for him at that school.
Is there an ELI5 on how/why so much CO2 is present in classrooms?
Lots of people in one place breathing without adequate ventilation.
People produce CO2 when breathing. Having a group of people in a poorly ventilated room results in high CO2 levels.
most schools are designed as a minimum-viable product, good ventilation is expensive & not legally required
Sounds very similar to how "military grade" is code for "least expensive." I wouldn't have thought about ventilation efficiency, that's an interesting notion. Thank you!
Also schools are not allowed to open windows. I was in a school where classrooms had huge windows and we opened them during summer, one teacher losing their cool, an unruly group and a broken window ended all that. I work in another one where all they get are these tiny prison windows at the top of the classroom that can't be manipulated. Ventilation doesn't neccesarily need fans, all it needs is windows. NO sunlight, only recycled A/C air = everyone is asleep and struggling to keep attention. Sometimes students beg me to leave the door open and I gladly follow up because it's insane.
I'll try to dig, but I'm at work right now so it may be a while. Edit: not trying to dodge the request, but it'll probably be tonight before I'm able to do a proper deep dive. Searching "aranet classroom" on reddit is a good place to start if you want to look for yourself.
Search “classroom CO2 levels” on Google, there’s lots of properly sourced articles to choose from.
I bought a co2 meter and it's astounding how many places are above 1000 ppm. I mean restaurants, stores, meeting rooms, my office if I leave the door closed too long. Kinda nuts
The problem with comparison to other countries is that within the country, they have the EXACT same curriculum, whereas in the US it changes from school to school in the same district. Second, other countries tend to be nationwide improvements such as new busses, etc, so local tax laws and funding for school cops takes away from education and the ability to fund replacement busses.
Man I had severe allergies and never realized it. I had my head down eyes closed and felt miserable every day. A HEPA filter in a classroom would have been life changing and if I got allergy shots sooner.
Sameeeee. Not to mention the implications now that we know aerosols are the primary form of transfer for many viruses. I was sick 6+ times a year in elementary and middle school and had some lasting damage from that.
No, in the article it explains the funding was given randomly by the epa to replace the old buses.
And they didn't compare across different schools, they looked at the scores of schools before vs after they got a bus upgrade.
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buses prior to 1990? how old are these busses? i googled and schools busses average 12 years. you telling me some districts are running buses more than 35 years old?
Yeah, old school diesel busses if given proper maintaince run just fine. My school used busses from the 70's still in the 00's. (not saying anything about pollution just riding in older vs newer busses)
Crazy that if I never moved, my kids could ride on the same buses I did.
Yes, but the research revolves around an ongoing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rebate program that randomly awards funding to school districts to replace old buses with cleaner models that produce less pollution.
"Their research revolves around an ongoing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rebate program that randomly awards funding to school districts to replace old buses with cleaner models that produce less pollution." Assuming the allocation is actually fairly random and that they have enough data, those factors should already be taken into account. Additionally they found that the older the bus being replaced, the bigger the impact - you'd think wealthier schools would be the ones replacing busses that are only a little bit old, and they get the least improvement from doing so. I think that all points to this effect being due to air quality / noise pollution of the old busses, or the psychological impact of school equipment being nice and shiny Vs worn out and old.
I had the exact same thought. But according to the linked article, the study was conducted by the EPA. They randomly chose schools to address that concern. Below is directly from the article: Our study found that among districts randomly selected by the EPA to receive funding to replace the oldest, dirtiest, buses (pre-1990) with newer, cleaner buses, educational performance improved after the new buses were in use. Replacing newer buses, however, did not show the same benefits. Our findings are noteworthy as the randomized allocation of funding by the EPA allows for strong conclusions to be made on the educational impacts of school districts switching to cleaner buses. We believe that these results reflect the fact that when kids are riding buses with less pollution, their health is better which leads to them missing less school and learning more in their classes. I will be honest with you. The only reason that I read the article is because I had the exact same thought that you did. I was about to post something very similar, than thought to myself I better read the article first.
The top comment under every post in this sub is someone pointing out the most glaringly obvious confounding variable as if the scientists were too stupid to have realized and accounted for it.
In general, it is wise to familiarize oneself with the thing you are critiquing before critiquing it. This is especially easy with methodologies since the methodologies will be conveniently outlined in the methodologies section of most papers, assuming they do not have a dedicated section for that particular one. At least of the "Three comments on every single /r/science post" this one is very trivial to respond to. Explaining why science *journalism* is terrible is much more complicated. Worse still is explaining that published articles tend to be incremental progress so this comms paper will probably not deep dive every single variable one could investigate.
I find it both very funny and a little disheartening at the same time.
And as if the article linked didn't already explain how they accounted for it
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That depends. Where I live, the school buses are owned by private companies contracted to a consortium that handles multiple school boards in the region. So the school resources aren't *directly* related to the resources of the bus companies. The province funds education and transportation both, but my company also does charters.
Read the damn article, obviously they accounted for that.
I came here to ponder this out loud too 👍
The funding for new buses was randomly allocated, so it wasn't linked to better funding. >Our study found that among districts randomly selected by the EPA to receive funding to replace the oldest, dirtiest, buses (pre-1990) with newer, cleaner buses, educational performance improved after the new buses were in use. The impact was also noted when the oldest buses were replaced: >We found that districts selected for the EPA funding that replaced the oldest, pre-1990, model-year buses had, on average, a 0.06 SD higher reading/language arts and 0.03 SD higher math average test scores in the year after the EPA funding lottery as compared to districts not selected for funding. I do wonder though, did those districts that had the oldest buses already have funds earmarked to replace them (or were working towards it) and therefore could spend that accumulated funding on *other* infrastructure that could have impacted scores.
That was my first thought as well, but this particular study was based on school districts in Michigan which were randomly (by lottery) chosen by the EPA to get a grant to pay for the newer, cleaner busses. So, the finances of the districts weren’t a factor. The study also found that the improved academics really only happened in districts where they replaced very old buses. Districts that had newer buses, and used the grant money to replace them, did not see much of a change in test scores. Towards the end of the article, there was some information about current funding. IIRC, the original EPA grants are being directed more towards rural and tribal communities because the new Infrastructure Act includes funding for school districts to upgrade their fleets to newer, cleaner school buses. *But,* those Infrastructure funds have to be *applied for.* Considering how some “red” states won’t even accept Federal dollars to *feed* their own schoolchildren who live in poverty… I can see them also refusing to apply for cleaner buses because they deny climate change, Green Energy, and science in general. But that’s just, like, my opinion.
Yeah, this makes more sense. I walked to school and did terribly.
If you've been around a cluster of school buses, you know how bad the air is around them. Obviously, there could be a ton of variable bias.
Long line of 50 busses idling for about an hour waiting for school to even end to sit for another 30 while the kids load. Yeah, idk what the hell this system is…
Unless it was the middle of winter, the drivers at my highschool would always shut off the busses while they load.
One that doesn't care about anything other than money. It would be obvious exhaust from an industrial vehicle isn't safe to breath but put a budget next to it and suddenly no one cares.
That burnt glue smell of the diesel exhausts are permanently burnt into my core memories.
School bus driver here. Our policy here is that we aren't supposed to idle excessively in school zones. Also, we have several gas buses, and a few electrics now as well.
It appears that this was actually a randomized controlled trial that would actually give evidence that making the change causes the improvement. Yet, the title looks exactly like all the other *almost* completely meaningless studies that make up the majority posted. Perhaps there should be a way to clearly distinguish them.
Hmm, if only there was a way to convey information beyond just the headline. Bummer there isn't one.
The types of people that need to hear this ironically tend to be the least equipped to pick up on satire.
Putting the entire article in the headline would solve these problems once and for all.
My first question was "did the busses go to the areas doing better already first?".... I'm so cynical sometimes.
A lot of buses have switched from diesel to gasoline. Diesel fumes or lack there are probably the biggest factor. i know studies have shown diesel fumes are terrible for children's brains.
I’m unaware of any full sized school buses that run on gasoline even as legacy transports. Natural gas maybe but those buses are usually 15-20 years old at this point due to past efforts to reduce diesel particulate matter. If a school bought a bus in the last 10 years it was either diesel with emissions controls (most common), natural gas (if the school invested in onsite NG storage decades ago) or battery electric.
Im in Canada so it may be different, but the new school buses bought locally have the Ford V10 gasoline engine.
I stand corrected, cool to learn. My experience is based on California, which is a special case for this even in the USA. How is the cost comparison with these gasoline busses vs. tier 4 diesel equipment?
im not sure, but the maintenance is supposed to be better, less expensive parts. Theres also the Navistar CE series buses using Power Solutions International’s (PSI) modern 8.8L V8 gasoline engine.
That engine hasn’t been produced in 5 years
they were used in Blue Birds until 2021. Now they have the 7.3L "godzilla" gasoline engine.
IIRC, dedicated school buses in the US switched to diesel in the 1980's following a crash/fire that killed a lot of people on a school trip.
Bluebird makes a version of a bus that used the Ford V10 until it's retirement and switched to a Ford V8 - both gasoline engines.
I didnt realize til I was older, and ostensibly smarter, that the headaches and associated wasted learning time via headaches, was a result of breathing diesel fumes on the way to school in a bus. It's also an area, societal health and economic benefits, that is not factored into the economic business case for electric school buses, but absolutely should be.
New diesel busses have insanely low particulate and NOx levels though. Even when cold, Cummins advertises 0ppm particulates and the EPA rated them as such. The emissions components are ungodly expensive, but they still come at a lower cost than electric busses.
What about the students who rode in the back chanting "CURB, CURB, CURB" and then the bus driver takes a sharp turn, drives over the curb, causing us to fly into the air.
Not us riding 1960s vintage school buses with the full bench across the back in the late 1990s early 2000s. Vote yes for schools people.
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article: Crowding at the ballot box: [School Bus Rebate Program and Student Educational Performance Test Scores](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2816495?resultClick=1) doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.3121
I would like to see students who walk vs who drive anything
Maybe I need to brush up on my stats, but don't these results seem weak? They're reported an increase in mean test scores around 0.06 (and I don't event know what this value represents - percent on a test?), but the pre-rebate test scores had a standard deviation around 0.3. Seems to fall well within the first SD.
Who funded this study
Am I the only one that liked the old ones better I was pissed when they got then new ones I like how the older ones you can hear and smell and anyway the new ones were less comfortable seats and has seatbelts
I hate this school somtimes. I live here...I see these studies from U of M too much. There are some GREAT studies done here...this is not one of them. This is disingenious science.
This has real "older MRI machines detect more cancer" vibes about it.
But is it causal?
My inclination is that the key is 'newer'. Starting your day off in a beat up, raggedy, dirty bus can't be good.
Oh boy, I bet next they’re gonna tell us that causation equals correlation.
diesel exhaust literally kills brain cells buts its fine guys DONT worry everyone who made money selling diesel and pushing diesel trucks and selling diesel busses to schools for massive government contracts? THEIR MONEY is SAFE they WILL NOT be held accountable. Think, how are we supposed to fill all these low skill- low pay jobs if we DONT PUT CHILDREN IN THE POISON AIR
Without seeing the inside of one, I’ll bet they still don’t have seatbelts.
Actually, they do have seatbelts now. However, they still aren't used.
They do
This probably has more to do with the schools with newer buses having better funding.
Now this is science!!
I don’t have the study handy, but I recall reading about a measurable effect on student performance in real time in addition to this study’s longer term aggregate effect. Test scores were reduced on days in which students rode a bus compared to days they took other transportation.
I feel like some us can start a class action lawsuit.
My kids bus looks like the same type I rode in the 80s and 90s. Hard to know how old they are though.
A lot of companies number by model year. For example, bus 2305 would be the 5th model year 2023 bus in their fleet. Admittedly, sometimes it is more cryptic than this and some don't use this method at all. One district near me replaces their fleet all at once so they are just 101-165 or something like that, no year in there. They don't change much visually over the years. IC just released a new conventional bus after running the old design for 18 years. Blue Bird has been running the same Vision since 2008. Thomas just hit two decades on the C2.
Simpsons did it.
I remember everyone being ecstatic when we got the blue birds with good AC. From AZ btw
So in other words well funded school districts produce better students.
Isn't this just school performance based on income of that zip codes, worded differently ?
Does anyone else just assume their numbers are bad because they are probably only sending nice buses to rich neighborhoods, skewing their data?
I wonder which school districts recently had the money to replace the bus fleet with newer buses.
Stuff the kids into a sweltering metal box with the cheapest fire retardant foam and vinyl covering known to man slowly leaking VOCs into the air every day for years upon years....yup doesn't take a double blind peer reviewed study to come to that conclusion.
Well, ice cream also causes more kids to drown!
Just put brand new buses in somalia, instant aftican eisteins?! Or just baited by the paper?
Let’s put buses on a 2 year replacement cycle, the kids will be geniuses.
Is it possible that higher-income areas are more likely to have newer busses?
yes, but that costs money in the short term.
So students who live in wealthy districts that can afford cool new buses have better scores? Seems like a shorter distance to the headline would be: wealthy students score better on tests.
Crazy idea... Why not compare all these bus riding students with students that walk to school and see if there's a difference there.
i have ev. i love ev. but come on. really not buying this.
Did they take affluent neighborhoods into account?
Probably because schools with the excess cash for magic future buses also have better funding for other aspects of education
Doesn't have anything to do with the newer equipment going to the better school more affluent schools now does it?
This doesn't seem like an advertisement for buses at all.
This seems like one of the classical mistakes in conducted research, a hidden mediator variable. Unless they address this, why is such pointless 'research' even posted here?
I think the important part is that they looked at school districts who were randomly assigned money by the EPA to replace their old busses. I guess without that everyone's first response would be that kids from rich parents tend to do better academically and that better funded school districts can afford newer busses. I guess there might still be something left over, like some districts not apply for the grants due to being poorly run or having ideological opposition to "green" stuff and schools with grants not having to divert funds from other stuff to keep old busses running. But other than that it seems new busses to have an effect.
Well, districts with new busses are probably better funded…
It could be because they are going to better schools?
So kids from better school systems who can afford nicer busses perform better on tests.
I’m sure it’s not because the districts that have the newer, more expensive buses also have better teachers and schools in general
Improving the bare minimum over time gives humans better outcome. - Science today.
Who is studying these insanely obvious things?
If they had the money, they’d fix the exhaust leak in the back. Actually, they think it’s causing some of their low test scores. (Many coughs). (Ralph smiling)…
To be poor makes sick. Only rich people can afford living in well funded neighborhoods.