Giving Compass' Take:

• Jennifer Rainey Marquez discusses how relatively inexpensive engine retrofits on school buses improve student health and academic performance.

• What are other opportunities within communities to stop pollution affecting kids?

• Read how air quality improvements in L.S. caused kids' asthma cases to drop.

Buses, which carry more than 25 million US children to and from school every year, still largely lack features that became standard decades ago, including airbags, air conditioning, and even seat belts. They also still pump out diesel exhaust, a major source of harmful pollutants, at a time when diesel vehicles account for just 3% of total automobile sales in the US.

“Kids are more susceptible to air pollution than adults, yet they’re breathing in bus fumes twice a day, every school day,” says Wes Austin, an economics PhD student at Georgia State University.

Austin and his colleagues, Garth Heutel, associate professor of economics, and Dan Kreisman, assistant professor of economics, analyzed a decade of test score data from school districts in Georgia, and measured changes over time, comparing districts that retrofitted a lot, some, or none of their school buses. They found that retrofits were linked to gains in test performance, particularly for English tests.

Read the full article about how green school bus makeovers can make kids healthier by Jennifer Rainey Marquez at Futurity.