Blogging again... too much to say about Public Schools in NYC

As a parent, educator, citizen of NYC, as a former public school kid here in NYC, a child of a public school teacher (28+years), and for all the multitude of other roles we all play in this complex and busy city, I say this to those who ask for the reality about public education here and now:

We live in a city where public school is in fact NOT free

1. if we want to have smaller or better staffed classes
2. if we want to have our kids participate REGULARLY in afterschool programs that are NOT JUST a sort of glorified babysitting in the school's cafeteria
3. if we want our kids to be learning about foreign languages in any meaningful or substantive way
4. if we want our kids to be able to get into better schools than 50% of the city's kids get into generally; ie the Specialized Middle and High Schools such as NEST (G&T), Mark Twain (Coney Island Gifted), LaGuardia, Stuyvesant, Tech etc...

In fact, this topic of how much we "pay" into our kids' PTA funds, afterschool programs, trips and 'enrichment activities' is really about how the city has become increasingly a place of the families/kids/students who HAVE enough to support the "GetIntoAGoodSchool&College" habit and those who DO NOT (have enough), and/or about how parents who 1.are not literate, 2.not prepared educationally, socially or economically, 3.struggle with day to day subsistence here in New York ... how these multitudes of parents and family units are left INCREASINGLY out of the entire game .

That leaves the aproximately 10% of each grade, PreK to 12th, who still attend public school, but who could PROBABLY both get into private schools and pay for them, WHO LIKE ME choose to 'stick it out' but who also understand the level of $$ commitment and who can articulate the issues enough to get into the schools we want to attend.

Rachel Leinweber
IPhone : 718 757 5110