Is it because of the pollution or because kids who live near highways come from poorer socio-economic environments? Kids who grow up in poor rural areas nowhere near cars also have performance and behavioral problems.
Also, some of the top schools in the NYC metro area are situated near highways or high traffic areas. Why aren't these kids affected as negatively? Could it be many of them come from higher socio-economic situations?
Finally, isn't it a bit disingenous to say poor kids pay for it when they don't pay taxes. Also, the article claims these kids receive free lunches, so most likely they parents don't make enough money to pay much in taxes. So the "wealthy" who pay taxes are already paying for the poor kids, their school and their air filtration system are already paying taxes to clean up the pollution. So they already paid, what more do they have to pay for?
Ideally, it would be great if every kid had a school in a middle of prisinte woods without any pollution, but then people would complain about the destruction of pristine nature.
I'm definitely not a lawyer and I live nowhere near the Bay Area, but by my reading of most of these laws, this is illegal. I realize we often interpret these issues differently depending on who they effect, but this sounds like an open-and-shut case of discrimination to me.
Whether this is right or wrong is another debate. But race, gender or "diversity" hiring or recruiting certainly isn't illegal. It happens all the time.