School Admissions Changes Causing 'Chaos'
This year the Department of Education changed its admissions process for pre-K’ers, according to the Brooklyn Eagle, and the shift means a lot of parents are grappling with the fact that their kids have been placed in schools far from home. About 3,000 parents, “including those in large swaths of Brownstone Brooklyn,” recently found out…
This year the Department of Education changed its admissions process for pre-K’ers, according to the Brooklyn Eagle, and the shift means a lot of parents are grappling with the fact that their kids have been placed in schools far from home. About 3,000 parents, “including those in large swaths of Brownstone Brooklyn,” recently found out their kids didn’t get into any of the schools they’d put down on application forms. Yesterday Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and Councilman Bill de Blasio held a press conference to decry the new pre-K placement system, and Gotbaum said the changes “have had some chaotic consequences for parents.” The new admissions process is apparently affecting older kids, too. Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn has been writing about how her child didn’t get in to any middle schools, apparently because of a DOE computer glitch. The blogger is describing the experience as traumatic: “And then [my daughter] heard me talking on the phone to the New York Times. She doesn’t know who I was talking to but she can tell that I am agitated, annoyed, on edge, shakey, not happy and so on.”
Pre-K Snafu Leads Brooklyn Parents To Protest at Tweed [Brooklyn Eagle]
Middle School SNAFU: My Daughter Isn’t On The List [OTBKB]
Photo by Kit & I.
If you want to see what private schools are like in NYC…simply tune in to the hit tv series, Gossip Girl on the WB. I’m being serious here. It’s a tv show, but I can tell you from experience that it isn’t much different in real life.
You’ll yank your kids out of there so fast and put them in public school, you won’t know what hit you.
And as a kid growing up in NYC private schools, I would NEVER subject my kids to that.
Rich, spoiled brats who are addicted to sex or drugs or both. The parents are pill popping drunks who are too buys working or travelling to spend much time with the kids, so they produce offspring with no sense of themselves, no sense of what a dollar is worth (fine, not much now) and no sense of arts or culture.
They do, however learn quite quickly how to use a rolled up 20 dollar bill for something other than a new shirt at the Gap…
11:42: wrong again (you are the same as 11:03 I take it). I was smart enough to buy in Manhattan when interest rates were high but prices were low and cashed out at the right time. Took that $$ and bought something in BK. My partner and I work our asses off at our jobs and we are both handy – hence doing our own renovations. Dumbass.
11:46 = post of the day. Unfortunately, I suspect some people will still, for whatever reason, never understand and/or believe that certain parents, even those with the means to afford private school, prefer and believe in the public school system and consider it the best alternative for their child(ren).
Having said that, this f’up by the DOE is appalling. Whatever one thinks of public vs. private school debate, ultimately let’s remember it’s the children who are getting hurt here the most and I fear this situation may significantly damage the support of the public school system if not immediately corrected.
@Biff: 10:30 here. I have no doubt nearly every parent tries to do what’s best for their kids. But I think many parents of means do so exclusively at the expense of doing what’s best for their communities–and are overlooking how, unless your home is a fortress, the best interest of your neighborhood IS the best interest of your child. Particularly when you consider (as 11:41 noted above by way of making a different argument) that most kids of parents who can afford private school themselves are so advantaged that they will do well at nearly any school.
Certainly there other ways of helping your community than supporting the local school–if you are in a neighborhood watch, or pick up trash, or volunteer with the elderly, etc., great–but probably none is as significant. And I see little sign in the comments here any way that many people are making these unspecified contributions.
What I see instead a lot of at Brownstoner instead is the attitude that their presence itself constitutes a contribution to the community.
The outright ignorance of some of the comments here is truly sad. I can afford private school easily for the kids, and I think (not positive here) that they are smart enough to get in, but I happen to believe in public education. I really don’t want my kids going to a school where everyone is rich, so that they get a warped perspective on Brooklyn and life. I know people who feel “poor” at private schools because their family only makes $200,000/year. If you don’t think that trickles down to the kids, you are nuts. I tell my kid that most of his classmates at his public school are rich, because their families can afford to buy them everything they need, and lots of extra toys as well. Fortunately for us, we have a local zoned school that parents like myself took a chance on improving and it’s now a majority of middle class families (or perhaps upper middle class by nationwide standards). But there are still more than 1/3 of the kids who qualify for a free lunch.
Telling parents who can afford it they should opt out of the public school system is simply insane — when that happens, the schools decline tremendously, and everyone left is stuck with the results. In the best public school districts in the country — including many in the most right wing conservative areas — ALL students use the public schools, and the ones shipped off to private school are often the ones with issues. (I’m generalizing here, of course this isn’t true in all neighborhoods). But the more private schools a town has locally, the more likely it is that the public schools are declining.
Pre-K should be reserved for kids whose families have incomes below a certain threshhold. If there are still spots, kids could apply via lottery. Probably most wealthier parents would bite the bullet and just pay for one more year of preschool. But the DOE, in its’ wisdom, told parents that siblings in the zone would get first priority, and then screwed it up. And, most frustrating is that they paid some private vendor god knows how much money to handle this. There’s nothing sadder than the waste of money paid by the DOE to private vendors (like the “quality review”) that could have been spent on our kids’ education.
But those of you who think everyone who can afford it should opt out of public school sound like Republicans, because that’s exactly what Republicans want. Convince people all government run programs are bad, and we can get rid of all of them. What a shame. Fortunately, the vast improvement in public schools in Brooklyn is the result of parents who didn’t listen to you.
Hey North Sleeper, I’m pretty sure that mommy and daddy came through and helped you with the down payment costs or gave you job on Wall Street, where you make $1 M a year.
10:54 – yes 1-4 years are critical. But what does that mean? It means that young children should be read to by their parents. It does not have to be done in a pre-K setting. And all parents who are using these schools read to their children.
2 points, folks.
1) pre-K is shown to be most beneficial to disadvantaged kids. By 3, kids on public assistance have heard about 20K words, working class kids have heard about 35K words, kids of professional parents have heard about 75K words. It’s about leveling the playing field. Pre-K is critical to closing the achievement gap for those with fewer resources. Extrapolate from this info what you will, vis a vis park slope kids and elsewhere.
2) As a kid, I was bussed halfway across my city in the 70s in Boston (remember, the place with the racial issues?) and I did FINE. My safety school when I was applying to college was Amherst, and I’m no genius. Going to a crappy school won’t kill you. In fact, it will give you a keen sense of what a bum deal those less affluent than yourself tend to get, as a rule. This is a useful lesson.
2B) By the way, going to an Ivy, where I went, is not a recipe for happiness, wealth, achievement, or well-adjustedness. Just hope your kid is happy and stop stressing out about whether or not he can read by age 4.
This is a disaster, not just the pre-K assignments but the 5th grade middle school assignments.
WHERE ARE THE LETTERS FROM THE DOE?
Parents of 5th graders were told that middle school assignment info would be sent in early MAY.
The other disaster is real estate values: houses in 321 just lost a good chunk of value if the elementary schools aren’t really “zoned” anymore. This is a big deal, people.
Hats off to the DOE for a cluster%$#k par excellence.