Transit to school still a struggle

Six years after Denver Public Schools created an innovative bus shuttle system to help get students to school, the effort has expanded and evolved, but the larger problem it tried to fix remains.

The system, called the Success Express, was introduced in 2011 in northeast Denver with the goal of helping families choose high-quality schools as the district was changing the choice process and overhauling low-performing schools.

The Denver school district for years has received national praise for simplifying the school choice process, but providing adequate transportation continues to be a barrier to real choice. Districts nationally still have looked at the Success Express as a model — one of relatively few examples of an urban district trying to tackle broader transportation challenges.

The 92,000-student district was spotlighted last week when U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos praised the Success Express in a speech celebrating “outof-the-box approaches.”

“This transportation is key in order to provide students with access to quality options,” said DeVos, who has championed expanding school choice, including vouchers for private schools.

Solving the transportation puzzle remains elusive in Denver and other cities. A research report last month from the nonprofit Urban Institute identified transportation barriers in five cities, including Denver, and called choice an “empty” promise for many families.