Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
The Clean School Bus Program has been funded with a $5 billion grant from the Inflation Reduction Act that should be appropriately named the Climate Change Act. Around $1 billion of this will be spent on electric school buses. As with all spending plans, the budget quickly jumped from $500 million to $1 billion after the EPA said there was a strong demand. The buses will first be tested in low-income districts, and the people are not happy.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has reported a drastic dip in test scores since 2020 when the government closed down schools for a virus. Math scores are at a 50-year low. Out of a score of 500, 13-year-old students scored an average of 271 in mathematics. Literacy rates are also declining with the average 13-year-old scoring 256 out of 500. Pre-pandemic, this same demographic scored 260 in reading and 280 in math. “The bottom line — these results show that there are troubling gaps in the basic skills of these students,” said Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. One troubling report showed that 70% of 10-year-old students could not read after the lockdown worldwide.
There is also a growing shortage of teachers due to low pay and most public schools are lacking basic supplies. A report from June 2022 showed that public schools lost 7% of all instructors (233,000 teachers) between 2019 and 2022. Here in Florida, there are reports on the news all the time of air conditioning systems failing amid a summer heatwave. Schools throughout America lack basic funding, kids are forced to share books, the most fundamental items like pencils are often shared, and the curriculum has nothing to do with becoming a successful member of society.
There are countless issues that public schools face, but let’s focus on spending on buses when that is not an area of concern to anyone outside the Build Back Better climate change crowd. Electric school buses cost between $350,000 and $450,000 – nearly four times more than traditional diesel buses. Need to replace the battery? That could cost around $50,000 to replace and the average lifespan is only 7 to 8 years.
“Who doesn’t love a yellow school bus?” a smiling Harris asked an invitation-only crowd at Seattle’s Lumen Field, with an electric bus behind her. “We are witnessing around our country and around the world the effects of extreme climate,” she said. “What we’re announcing today is a step forward in our nation’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gases, to invest in our economy … to invest in building the skills of America’s workforce. All with the goal of not only saving our children, but for them, saving our planet.”
GOP political candidate Tiffany Smiley offered a word of advice to Harris: “At a time when school test scores are at the lowest levels seen in a generation due to harmful school closures, Vice President Harris and Senator Murray offered ZERO solutions to this education crisis at an event where they claimed to care about what’s best for our children. It’s easy to support infrastructure FUNDING, especially for cleaner buses. But the Democrat’s economic policies have led to labor shortages that threaten to derail infrastructure DELIVERY, with Seattle Public Schools unable to hire enough bus drivers to staff all of their routes. This is a prime example of Patty Murray caring more about the priorities of Washington D.C. over Washington state.”
Yet again the government is funding an imaginary problem while bypassing the real issues that need to be addressed. One BILLION dollars could fund a plethora of items that would improve the lives of the people immediately. This net-zero push is becoming increasingly costly and they want to have it all squared away by 2030. Expect more expensive and unnecessary changes.
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Another grotesque democrat waste of taxpayer money.
Not only that, but electric vehicles can be death traps even when stationary. The video below shows a mass transit electric bus in France bursting into flames due to a defect or short in the battery. The bus is consumed in just a few minutes. The larger size of the battery likely makes the fire spread faster. Imagine this bus full of small school kids.
My thoughts exactly.
Most of these buses are going to low- income districts? Hmm . . .
They will be setting where I live when it gets to -10 degrees and even less. Batteries don’t do well in that cold and none of the bus companies have their school buses in heated garages, they all sit outside.
School has been called off due to cold weather!
Waste, yes, but now maybe lots of folks can get buses with internal combustion engines to convert to portable housing.. in a few years when the electric ones fail all the kids will walk to school
The continued demise of our country via the lining of elites pockets with lucre.
Yes, I believe this is the only reason for the green agenda. It’s all about change. Monumental change can bring amazing amounts of $$.
Same with trans kids, Docs get big bucks to trans them, then big bucks to trans them back, and the big pharma companies have life long hormone customers.
The continuing embezzelment and waste of our tax money by the Elites is greatly enhansed by the damn stupidity of the American public.
We don’t even have school buses here in Norfolk Nebraska.
LOL. Try that bullshit up in northern MN. Kids be taking hour long bus rides to Northland High School in Remer, MN, population 370. When it’s -19F, that bus will poop out after dropping off a couple of kids – even if they don’t turn on the heat. They’ll find the rest of them the next morning frozen kack stiff along the highway – what the wolves didn’t get anyway.
Iska,
I’ve also heard hills are murderous on battery longevity. Decreasing the daily mileage expected to ridiculous distances in hilly country.
Another Solyndra in the making.
Talked to a guy with a Tesla and he said he only gets about 20,000 miles out of a set of tires as the batteries are so heavy they just wear the tires out. They will be extremely expensive to operate.
Just another billion plus dollars of money being laundered thru the bail out of automobile companies.
And China were a lot of the minerals come from to make those batteries. But hey, the Big Guy gets 10% back!
Against bailing out auto companies but that is not the reason for the spending. The spending is to launder money to political friends. Bailouts are just an excuse fir the spending . Welcome to California.
Oh yea!!… They can burn groups of carbon waste together… FJB…
Yeah and they’re all shitting the bed breaking down on the side of the road.
You should see the school districts portion of my property tax bill and the mega stadiums the districts just gotta have around here.
The best way to improve scholastic achievement is to bring back ass whipping in the coach’s or principals offices.
Government likes your kids extra crispy. I would not let my kids ride on these travesties.
Low pay for teachers LMAO Better look at the faculty parking lot of most public schools and check the premium model vehicles . Now look at retirement at an age with life left to live and the means to do so !
As for electric buses be sure to notify black children they are being transported to school using batteries where much of the base materials are mined by African children younger than themselves.
One would think this would drop this liberal lunacy in its tracks but NOOOO
THE SKY IS FALLING and it’s CLIMATE CHANGE OH THE HUMANITY
🖕
hell the students in my local high school parking lot drive better vehicles than mine, but mine are all paid for!
I predict a lot of 200 lb grade schoolers on foot to school when these suckers crap out.
Nah, they will get on their cell phones and mommy or daddy will drive down in their gasoline engine 4×4 truck or SUV and give them a ride home in time to play video games until bedtime. So much for carbon savings and children’s exercise.
Oh, so children can burn to death in those death traps when the batteries go nuclear… One more tool for world depopulation.
Our local system is refusing to buy them currently. Probably because I keep sending the transportation supervisor these links.
Another supervisor in a neighboring state bought and took delivery of 2 electric buses. During the newscast, she was so proud to virtue signal about her school system becoming less dependent on fossil fuels. Turns out they have had nothing but problems with those buses since.
Wonder how these modern miracles heat up in the winter?
Why do we have so many stupid people in government?
It’s because they will never make it in the private sector.
They are not stupid, they are getting kick backs. Do you think only Federal politicians can be bought? Local, county and state ones can be too!
Black people vote for black people,and libtards vote for libtards. Next question.
Yes and if your electric bus hurts our children, well then you’ll shall experience an unimaginable fate!
(((They))) will probably be held harmless thru some.legal document that was.witheld from your knowledge.
Ya know…like the covid death shots were.
Yeah but…
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https://freebeacon.com/campus/portland-school-district-workshops-equitable-grading-practices-that-outlaw-zeros-for-cheating-missing-work/
I wonder if they will do the news reports when they start bursting into flames after trapping all the kids inside with inoperable doors.
Probably not.
I call BS on this. The third largest fleet of school busses in the nation, Gwinnett Co GA, is 2 years in on converting all of their busses to have AC. It is a 15 year plan. There is no chance of of an electric bus until the AC conversion is complete.
What the Jab missed the bus will get.
Assuming the electric busses work as promised, where are we getting the electricity. The emissions will just move from vehicles to generating plants. The money will move from our pockets to global warming grifters. It is all about the money.
Put all your children in a metal box with giant lithium batteries… a Nazi crematorium designers wet dream.
another expensive scam by the malevolent upon the stupid to benefit the parasites who keep the malevolent in power.
God damn schools and local government blow money on stupid crap but can’t afford pencils? Our city roads are shit but the city just spent $5mm on a community field house that a local won’t be able to get into without a ” supervisor” inside. GFY.