Best Cars for Families With School-Age Kids

Parents who shuttle their kids to and from school need a vehicle that's up to the task. To help them, we've created a list of cars and SUVs using our School-Age Score, which addresses some key areas of parental concern.

First, we started with models that CR recommends, meaning that they did well in our road tests, have key safety features, scored well in our exclusive member surveys of reliability and satisfaction, and scored well in crash tests (if they were done).

Next, our experts considered access an important factor in deciding what car to drive. For this category, we specifically screened for vehicles with rear seats that were easy to get into.

Another consideration: As older kids go without a booster seat, it can be harder for them to see out the rear windows. To give them a better view of the outside world, we looked for cars with low beltlines—the point where the car’s body ends and the windows begin.