When I first started blogging, I wrote a few posts about the insanity of getting Jonah into one of the gifted schools in NYC. About that time, we decided that moving to the suburbs was better than dealing with that nonsense.
The public schools in NYC have several excellent gifted schools. They are free, public schools. The middle class in NYC have figured out how to rig the system to get their kids into those schools. Some of those kids are genuinely smart. But many parents hire tutors to help their kids get through the rough entrance tests.
Those tests are rough. We did one of the tests with Jonah, who did fine. His spacial ability was high enough to pull up his scores on verbal skills. But the process was horrible. He hated being put in a room with a stranger and being asked questions. I couldn't put him through any more hurdles.
Amy P sent me a link to a documentary on the craziness.
Apt. 11d 
Children’s mileage will vary on the tests.
It depends on what your kids are like. Mine absolutely *love* “being put in a room with a stranger and being asked questions.” Absolutely love it. My daughter still talks about the woman who did her testing, and would love to do it again. My son turned cartwheels (well almost, he actually stood on his head) with joy when we did his testing.
My kids attend a private school for the gifted that requires testing, though not in the NY scene, which is crazy.
Both my kids also really like participating in research. I take them in when they’re eligible for studies at our local Autism center). A fair amount of this involves some form of cognitive testing (the latest being the DAS-II). We don’t get scores when we do this testing (it’s for research). But, my kids think its fun and I enjoy contributing to the research.
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One of the reasons we did private school in Chicago was to avoid the whole testing vortex.
In general I think it’s absolutely criminal that we as a nation have so few quality educational resources. That we’re reduced to this kind of fighting over crumbs. Blech.
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“In general I think it’s absolutely criminal that we as a nation have so few quality educational resources. That we’re reduced to this kind of fighting over crumbs. ”
I don’t think this is actually the problem (well, entirely). I think people are trying to give their children a “leg up.” By definition, a leg up has to mean that the resource is scarce since it’s the ranking that matters. So, if you want a decent house, well everyone should be able to get one. But, if what you want is the biggest house, well, the resource has to be scarce, since there can only be one “biggest” house.
I try very hard not to fall into that trap — to look for a good education for my kids and not the “best” (either in absolute terms or in ranking terms). But there’s no doubt in my mind that the “scarcity” of education (well, take the college level as a better example) is self-imposed.
Admittedly though, the situation in DC, Chicago, LA, SF, and NYC are special — in our neck of the woods it really is true that there are a lot of good options (and that the statement is not just lip-service from the directors of admissions at the private schools). In those big cities, even good options might well be limited (and I have less knowledge).
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That article about the tutors was sickmaking.
There is some individual locational craziness that makes this happen, beyond the aspirational impulses fueled by money. San Francisco’s system seems frankly nuts to me, for example.
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There are many legitimately bad schools out there. The parents who get caught up in the craziness over the gifted schools in the city are not horrible people trying to grab resources. They have real and fair concerns about their local public schools. Last week, I posted a quick link to a video where Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich discuss touring the country to talk to kids in city schools. Sharpton was outraged at stories that he heard from the kids, including one story about a teacher who would go to sleep at the desk when class was in session.
Those of us who can opt out of the system have to be sympathetic to those who can’t opt out. I don’t think that education should be like a house or a car, an object where inequality isn’t a huge deal. In the case of schools, I think everyone should get the best.
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I saw that documentary a little while bad. It gave me heartburn just watching it.
When we decided to move to Atlanta, we opted for suburban public education as well. Particularly after we heard about the “parent interviews.” I didn’t want to have an ulcer while still only in my 30s. It’s not as competitive here as NYC, but it’s pretty close.
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People who move to the suburbs to escape the craziness are not really solving the problem; they are ensuring that the urban school systems they leave behind are bereft of (i) parents who are caring but sane and (ii) tax revenues. What we have is a system which does not operate according to capitalist logic, but in which, nonetheless, millions of reasonably benevolent, self-interested individuals produce a seriously sub-optimal result.
I don’t want my comment to be taken personally. I acknowledge freely that people like me who send their children to NYC private schools (which have their own relatively insane and competitive admissions process, albeit with a more user-friendly bureaucracy) are also not improving the urban public education system.
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Hi Laura,
Thanks for citing my blog in your post (and thanks to Amy P as well).
Although the intensity hasn’t quite reached this feverish a pitch in my part of the country (DC suburbs), it can be found. Here, it’s most evident in the competition to get into desirable middle school and high school magnet programs. And yes, tutoring for the admissions tests is happening:
http://cht1.endiva.net/AplusLearningINC/pub/LIT_14.asp
http://themorechild.com/2007/12/14/sat-prepfor-7th-graders/
http://themorechild.com/2009/02/14/mcps-stimulus-packagefor-tutors/
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Here in Toronto (and perhaps in other cities in Canada), French immersion public schools (we have two official languages – French and English) are seen as the “poor man’s private school”. Tongue in cheek of course. Kind of.
So neighbourhoods that have French immersion schools have CrAzY real estate prices and parents who fake their home address for admission. I always wondered how you’d keep that secret – what, no playdates ever?
The result is that in some ‘hoods, you have public schools with an overrepresentation of the struggling kids whose parents either cannot afford private school or who don’t have the time/resources/savvy to navigate the public system.
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“In the case of schools, I think everyone should get the best.”
You know, I really don’t think that’s possible.
Some of this is a semantic debate about “best” means, but if “best” means that there’s nothing better out there, it’s just mathematically impossible for everyone to get it. I guess if you re-define “best” to “best” in one parameter on a multi-dimensional scale, there might be a solution to the mathematical conundrum. And even that turns into a problem, ’cause each of our parameter optimizations will share features (doesn’t everyone want a smaller class size — ours, a “best” that we pay for, is 14).
And, yes, I’m aware that I speak from a position of privilege, since I can buy the “best” for my children. But, I also believe that when we get caught up in demanding the best (and that someone else pay for it or that we all share in the costs) we either get inequity (some people get the best, others get inadequate) or we get inadequate or mediocre for all (because nothing can be better than what is provided). I think demanding the “best” is a way to kill government services in general, and feeds the conservatives who would like us to dismantle government provided schools (and everything else) and open it to the private market. I think we have to define *good* and demand it for everyone, and let people buy better for themselves.
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Oh, and I watched the videos. They’re good. They capture the “craziness” of judging 5 year olds, without targeting the particular families (unlike the NYtimes articles which generally treat the parents as a crazy species they don’t understand). I got the impression of decent families trying to do right by their kids in a crazy system.
And, even though I did it (i.e. participated in the private school testing/interview process), I do think the underlying craziness is the concept of selective admissions for five-year olds. Our admissions director freely admitted that she could 2X the students would have been perfectly appropriate to admit (and joked that next year she’d just admit them and let them do first-come-first serve, and then clammed up, because 1) parents who are at the school don’t want to hear that and 2) got worried that a rumor would start). The people in the process know it’s crazy.
If a parent does participate, they need to know that, too, know that this “judgment” of your child at 5 does not mean anything significant about them. Testing is useful because it gives you information about your child, not because it is an evaluation of their worth. And, frankly decisions about 5 year olds, in America, don’t really mean anything significant about their future. It’s simply not true that a kid with involved and interested parents isn’t going to have opportunities. All 3 families profiled (and all of us) would have found solutions for *their* kids even if they hadn’t gotten in anywhere special in NY.
(and, mind you, it’s a different world out there in other countries, where your test score at 5 might set your life for you).
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