List - Here's a link to an op-ed published in today's New York Times. It's about middle class parents fighting to get their kids into gifted and talented programs in the New York City public schools.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/25/opinion/25POLL.html In light of list discussions about schools, I wonder how parents of MPS kids would compare the op-ed writer's experience with NYC gifted and talented programs with MPS programs. Has anyone volunteered at their favorite Minneapolis public school in order to help out their kid's chances of being admitted? If so does it work? Anyone know if it is a common practice? Again, this is pretty wholesome stuff, we're talking about offering one's time, not stock options. Caitlin Pine Lyndale by day Powderhorn by night In case the link breaks here's the text of the article: November 25, 2002 Public School Confidential By KATHA POLLITT As a public school parent, I should be enjoying a moment of blissful moral superiority at the expense of JackGrubman, the superstar telecommunications analyst accused of hyping AT&T as part of a deal to get his twins into the 92nd Street Y's exclusive preschool. Manhattan's public schools may be understaffed and underfunded, but at least they're egalitarian in their admissions policies. Aren't they? Unfortunately, not really. I doubt anyone's rocked the stock market to get their child into one of the city schools' programs for gifted and talented students, but that doesn't mean competition for the limited number of slots in these schools isn't fierce � and that it isn't stacked in favor of middle-class families. I saw this firsthand 10 years ago as I looked for a kindergarten in Manhattan Districts 2 and 3 for my daughter. The "hotter" the school or program, the more we prospective parents were told about the thousands of dollars parents donated for art, music and supplies, the "frills" that were vanishing from the system overall. A school's heat could be gauged too by the preponderance of white faces � principals, teachers, parent volunteers � in charge of these visits. At some schools you could measure the rising temperature by the increasing paleness of the students: the fifth grade might look like Trinidad, but the kindergarten looked more like Bavaria. On paper those schools were triumphs of integration; in reality, they were in transition. What do Manhattan parents do to get their little ones into the top public elementary schools? They do what I did: They get someone � friends with kids in the school, someone connected, someone famous � to put in a word, and they write sycophantic letters in which they profess allegiance to the school's educational philosophy, promise to work their tails off for the parents association and read their child French fairy tales at bedtime. Some go further: they fake an address in a district, or better yet in an upscale catchment area with an excellent zoned school � Greenwich Village for Public School 41, the Upper East Side for P.S. 6, the West 70's and 80's for P.S. 87. They prep their kids for I.Q. tests and for interviews masked as classroom visits. Will your 4-year-old have a meltdown when you drop her off in a roomful of strangers? There goes Harvard. In a pinch, parents can turn to consultants like the folks at Smart City Kids, an organization primarily devoted to helping parents get their children into private schools but which also offers workshops ($195 for two and a half hours) geared toward the public schools' gifted and talented programs. Free tip offered on the Web site: "The application process for some of the most selective public schools in New York City often begins a year before your child is scheduled to start school. Allow yourself this year's time to do the research." How many working-class parents can spend a year prenavigating the system? Given the state of the public schools, we parents don't have much choice but to pocket our qualms, if we have them, and knock ourselves out. I was thrilled when my daughter was accepted to the Lab School (was it the letter?) and eventually to Stuyvesant, the public high school whose challenging entrance exam has spawned prep courses as far away as Hong Kong and Taiwan. Still, the fact is the schools and programs in demand are oases of comparative privilege in a desert of deprivation: middle-class, disproportionately white enclaves often located within school buildings that are almost entirely minority and largely poor. At one program I visited, the administrator who showed prospective parents around boasted that students had science three times a week, not once a week like the children in the regular school � a troop of whom happened to be walking past her as she spoke. What kind of message are those kids getting? The number of good schools and good programs is still tiny. As long as that's the case, most parents who can do so will move mountains on behalf of their own children � mountains of cash for the Jack Grubmans, or of singlemindedness and savvy, with maybe a little bit of string-pulling, for many of us. But what about everyone else? Katha Pollitt is a columnist for The Nation. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus � Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
