The Shifting School Equation
There wasn’t room to discuss it yesterday, but we suspect the public/private school issue is on a number of people’s minds. Over the weekend, The Times ran an article about the number of people who bought their apartments in recent years with the assumption that they would send their kids to private school. Now that…
There wasn’t room to discuss it yesterday, but we suspect the public/private school issue is on a number of people’s minds. Over the weekend, The Times ran an article about the number of people who bought their apartments in recent years with the assumption that they would send their kids to private school. Now that the economic downturn has made that a more difficult proposition, they are left to confront the limitations of their own school district. In some cases, parents are even considering renting a cheap apartment within a good school district just to get access—after all, it would be cheaper than the $30,000+ tuition in Manhattan. (It’s more like $25,000 here in Brooklyn.) Question for the renters and those in the market to buy in Brooklyn: Has the school issue shifted your real estate plans since the downturn began?
The Sudden Charm of Public School [NY Times]
Photo by Steve and Sara
Lechacal – congrats and good luck
Bxgrl/I Haz – thanks – I wanted to share my story as I believe so many people out there treasure their former teachers…
Jackal….have a wonderful bouncing baby. I commented on the bar exam from something I heard heresay. i usually don’t comment on anything that I’m not 100% sure of 🙂
All of you arguing: I have no children and pay taxes. Go where you want to go. It doesn’t matter to me. Just thank me for paying my taxes. Full disclosure: I pay less than half the property taxes in Brooklyn that I did in Manhattan.
Thirdly, any of you arguing against rob have been PWNED today.
Requirements for the NYS bar exam:
http://www.nybarexam.org/Eligible/Eligibility.htm
chicken, sorry. 🙁 i always thought it was a term of enderment actually! and also i do get your point…
*rob*
colenel austin
we are zoned for 20 and i wanted to have my child attend. I went on the tour 3 times. i tried to like the school. i went to sign up and waited for over an hour to be seen. After an hour of waiting i couldn’t do it- and went to 11. I had no desire to fight the administration. Instead i wanted to be inspired by them. I don’t expect the school to open the doors to people who want to observe- but instead to those who want to help. At 11 the sense is the more parent involvement the better- the more parents there are to help the teachers the more time the teacher has to focus on teaching.
so yes- a principal who doesn’t want parents involved in the school isn’t going to bring in parents that want to be involved.
I don’t advocate telling a parent where to send their child to school. I assume every parent wants the best for their kids. But claiming only childless people advocate that is a misstatement. Put your kids where you feel you should- but how about working for the whole system instead of only concentrating efforts in your kid’s school. Parents are a huge and powerful group but I see them as fragmented and competing with each other now- that makes parents less effective as group overall.
Very few people want to hear from those of us without kids about education. They’re content to take our tax dollars though. Well- if you buy something in a store, wouldn’t you want the best value for your money? I feel that way about mine- I want the best school system for everyone. That’s real value. That may mean a lot of hard choices for parents but as i said, if you don’t want my opinion, give me a tax cut and have parents pay more taxes for schools.
Come on get a sense of humor – I have kids but – “crotchfruit” is a little funny – I mean we all know how they come to be; dont we?
ENY: Yes. Have to attend 4-year college to get into an ABA-accredited law school, but don’t have to necessarily graduate from high school to attend a 4-year college.
DIBS: These days you have to graduate from an ABA-accredited law school to sit for the NY bar. California may still permit a wider audience to sit for the bar.
Architerrorist: That’s fine. I don’t know you or your family so I take what you say at face value. But I will note that many parents seem very focused on multilingualism as a goal for their childres when it is really just a goal for themselves. These parents often cite fluency in non-fluent children. It’s one example of a broader set of behaviors involving parents imposing values on their kids and holding them out as a natural development (like parents who talked about how “into” Obama their pre-schoolers were last fall). It’s entirely up to you to judge whether you are one of those parents.
If I had a dollar for every park slope parent who claimed that their kid who just learned how to say “hola me llamo…” was multilingual and international etc…. well, I’d have enough to buy myself lunch at Mr. Wonton.
Colonel Austin:
I am really not interested in having this come down to the quality of the principal at PS 20. And I am not sure what conclusion I am meant to make from your challenge to the FG “stroller set” (most parents use strollers, btw!). On one hand you suggest that the parents are a bunch of pathetic whiners who can’t let go of their children, and on the other you voice someone’s (whose?) opinion that the principal bends over for white and mulato (you gotta be kidding – mulato?) kids. But I think your tone is a fair example of how poisonous the environment got there very quickly. We had bailed from that school for a whole bunch of reasons the year before the shit hit the fan. But I think what you have voiced is a legitimate interpretation of the struggles that went on there two years ago and confirms that schools are very political places, that parents have different views of what is important, and that parental involvement cannot trump a principal. When a strong principal opposes parents, legitimately or not, you just have to grab your ball (kid) and play somewhere else. And you see that in parents who have moved to another neighborhood school, PS 11.
I guess when parents complain about being physically barred from the school it is also a metaphor for institutional closure to change. At PS 261 where my son is now, we bring our children into the school, and on the last Friday of every month we are invited to participate in an hour of the teaching (be it reading, math, etc). When parents are battling each other over who has true right to a school, or battling self-involved faculty or a principal with a different vision, small moments like seeing your kids classmates each morning or observing how your child is learning can be lost.