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Yes, I live 10 kilometers from city center, literally on the edge of Amsterdam and nearest public school is exactly 300 meters away from my door, which is prett

Yes, I live 10 kilometers from city center, literally on the edge of Amsterdam and nearest public school is exactly 300 meters away from my door, which is pretty normal. You can see it on a map: https://scholenopdekaart.nl/zoeken/basisscholen?zoektermen=Amsterdam&weergave=Kaart https://scholenopdekaart.nl/zoeken/basisscholen?zoektermen=A... The problem of school being too far away is created by low-density developments, where car is a problem not solution. Add: middlebare schools are not that spread out, but older children (from 12yo) are also independent enough to either cycle for half an hour or take public transport unsuperwised, with choice left to them.

yread 5y ago
What's less than idyllic in the Netherlands (and Amsterdam especially) is that your performance in the basis school basically determines whether you will go to a university and basis schools are ridiculously varied in quality (in some 10% of kids go to VWO, national average is ~40% and there are some where 90% of kids go to VWO. VWO is the highschool that prepares you for university). So, even though in Amsterdam outside the ring you can have a school 300m away, it's not necessarily the school you want to send your kids to. see for example https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/06/dutch-education-system-is-increasing-inequality-ser-says/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/06/dutch-education-system... EDIT: not to mention the housing prices. Apparently, even the teachers are priced out of living and raising a family in Amsterdam which is one of the reasons for the current teacher shortage.
- teekert 5y ago
  Schools here are expects to "produce" kids going to follow up education with the same statistics as the parents of those kids (if this makes sense, a bit of a hard sentence). So I guess it has to do a lot with the educational level of the population of people living around a school. Our kids go to a school further away though because the nearest one was a "vrije school" (free school, different system), the nearest one may also be (not) religious or different religion than you seek. And yes, this is a bit of a shock to Americans, we have schools for religions. Never really extreme though. Although I really disliked my christian education when I was young. In winter we often do go by car, it's about 10 min, by bike it's the same time (shorter distance, nicer ride through a park). What I hate about the car is that me and a lot of other cars really produce poor air around the school.
- rambambram 5y ago
  I got the opposite idea the last years: like every 'mavist' is going to get a PhD. Which says more about universities and diplomas in general than about these persons.
- Muromec 5y ago
  >So, even though in Amsterdam outside the ring you can have a school 300m away, it's not necessarily the school you want to send your kids to. Which I guess is pretty universal and depends on a neighborhood.
  - pelasaco 5y ago
    not in Germany. Elementary School is bound to your ZIP code. So it causes the opposite: Families try to live around good schools, raising the price of the rent in that region.
    - thatfunkymunki 5y ago
      most USA public schools are this way as well, with the added bonus of them being funded primarily by property taxes of the locality in which they reside. So you have wealthy families buying homes in areas with nice schools, bringing up the real estate prices, which increases the funding of the school, which makes the school better, which attracts more wealthy families... etc

yread 5y ago

What's less than idyllic in the Netherlands (and Amsterdam especially) is that your performance in the basis school basically determines whether you will go to a university and basis schools are ridiculously varied in quality (in some 10% of kids go to VWO, national average is ~40% and there are some where 90% of kids go to VWO. VWO is the highschool that prepares you for university). So, even though in Amsterdam outside the ring you can have a school 300m away, it's not necessarily the school you want to send your kids to. see for example https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/06/dutch-education-system-is-increasing-inequality-ser-says/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/06/dutch-education-system... EDIT: not to mention the housing prices. Apparently, even the teachers are priced out of living and raising a family in Amsterdam which is one of the reasons for the current teacher shortage.

teekert 5y ago
Schools here are expects to "produce" kids going to follow up education with the same statistics as the parents of those kids (if this makes sense, a bit of a hard sentence). So I guess it has to do a lot with the educational level of the population of people living around a school. Our kids go to a school further away though because the nearest one was a "vrije school" (free school, different system), the nearest one may also be (not) religious or different religion than you seek. And yes, this is a bit of a shock to Americans, we have schools for religions. Never really extreme though. Although I really disliked my christian education when I was young. In winter we often do go by car, it's about 10 min, by bike it's the same time (shorter distance, nicer ride through a park). What I hate about the car is that me and a lot of other cars really produce poor air around the school.
rambambram 5y ago
I got the opposite idea the last years: like every 'mavist' is going to get a PhD. Which says more about universities and diplomas in general than about these persons.
Muromec 5y ago
>So, even though in Amsterdam outside the ring you can have a school 300m away, it's not necessarily the school you want to send your kids to. Which I guess is pretty universal and depends on a neighborhood.
- pelasaco 5y ago
  not in Germany. Elementary School is bound to your ZIP code. So it causes the opposite: Families try to live around good schools, raising the price of the rent in that region.
  - thatfunkymunki 5y ago
    most USA public schools are this way as well, with the added bonus of them being funded primarily by property taxes of the locality in which they reside. So you have wealthy families buying homes in areas with nice schools, bringing up the real estate prices, which increases the funding of the school, which makes the school better, which attracts more wealthy families... etc