middle school students can rank any school in the city

By Joyce Szuflita

This is a change. For many years, 5th graders have only been able to rank schools where they lived and attended school, and in addition a finite number of boroughwide or citywide schools…but not every school in the city.

The DoE has announced that starting this season, MYSCHOOLS will allow you to rank any school anywhere on your application. This seems like a big deal, but is it? The important distinction is that the schools’ priorities are remaining the same. For example, if a popular school has priority for District 2 students and residents, a student applying from outside of the district is considered for a seat after ALL the students and residents in District 2. If the school can easily fill with people from their own district, you are never getting a chance from out of district.

Occasionally very big and popular schools may have seats available after all district students have been placed. That will be an opportunity for people across the district line.

Also, sometimes strong schools are not recognized by their own district students, but other people may really like them relative to the options they have in their own districts and may feel like a small commute is worth it.

Sometimes, because of the vagaries of geographic boundaries, you might be closer to schools in the next district than you are in your own. Now you can rank them.

Is this a great thing? The answer is “it depends.”
One question that has been asked and so far remains unanswered: Does the same priority remain for “students and residents”? This equal priority has been misunderstood and is constantly mistaken by DoE employees and parents alike. It has always been the case that STUDENTS AND RESIDENTS HAVE EQUAL PRIORITY. It is assumed that Residents are preferenced. They NEVER HAVE BEEN. I don’t see any good reason for this to change, and like other years, people are telling me second hand that they have heard that “students” are not considered with the same priority as residents. I will believe it when I see it.
We need to wait until the MYSCHOOLS directory is finished being edited, but if it continues to say, “Priority to students and residents” - then take them at their word.

What online website should I use to learn about public schools?

By Joyce Szuflita
Inside Schools. Period. We are so lucky to have them. They are a NYC institution. They “get” us. They are nuanced, they are thoughtful, they are looking past the numbers, which can lie (or at least mislead).

Please STOP reading the grades and rankings on Great Schools. Although, feel free to read the blog. And also, please no more Niche or their ilk (they are all you have for Independent Schools, I’m afraid, but not any more accurate or insightful than for public school ratings with even less data). When families ask me, “what is the difference between a ‘9’ and a ‘6’?” I know they are using Great Schools. The answer is, “‘3’.” And yet, these are reputable websites that are doing their best to grade and/or rank schools with data that is crunched by big data people, but when we are talking about real professionals and families in communities that big data doesn’t understand, there are serious blind spots.

I don’t normally have occasion to look at the array of Great Schools grades laid out on the local map, but this week I chanced across one and I spit milk out of my nose. It bore little to no resemblance to the schools that I know. It was wildly cockeyed in both directions. If you are looking to move to the suburbs, you don’t have anything else to go by, and as inaccurate as it is, that is all you have…but in Brooklyn where you have the deep study of the New School for NY City Affairs and the professionalism and insight of education journalists who have studied every school in the City for over two decades - why would you go anywhere else? Because it doesn’t distill school quality to one number or letter? Because it doesn’t put them all in a line? Different people want different things. Different children need different things. Two different institutions can both be “good” AND different. When you try and cram the world into a line, you get a crazy line that is as unfair as it is inaccurate.

I know that I am telling you to turn away from information in a time when there is so little out there for you. That info is not always completely weird and off center. All I am asking is that you don’t make it your first or biggest resource. You should use your own eyeballs (through a virtual tour or open house, please God) in combination with the data and culture interpreted through Inside Schools, with a possible ‘grain of salt’ cross reference with Great Schools. Remember, there are a wide range of thoughtful schools that could serve your child. School (when it is in session) is 6 hours within 24, and 180 days within 365. Your child’s successful outcome may have as much to do with your good nutrition, making sure they get enough sleep at night, your reading to them every night, your modeling good habits, your thoughtful expectations and enrichment, your using big words, your turning your phone off and making eye contact with them, your expressing your own passions and hard work and respect for others, as weighing the difference between a “9” and a “6”.

Good luck, and remember that Inside Schools is an underfunded not-for-profit. In these last hours of the year, please send them a check, as I will.

your placement is not the reward for good work

By Joyce Szuflita
It is hard to really embrace this thought, and even harder to convince your child about it, but there is no other path.
Hard work should ‘pay off’, but there are plenty of times when it doesn’t. There are lots of people who don’t deserve things that get them. Life isn’t fair. If you are expecting a pat on the head and a key to the city for going the extra mile, you will often be disappointed.

The only true thing is that hard work- the satisfaction, knowledge and character that comes from it, is its own reward. The prize is the knowledge that you accomplished something meaningful, that is actively making you a more informed, more skilled, better person. It is almost impossible not to wish for the glittering prize (the admiration, the acknowledgement, the envy), but in the end, it often disappoints.

If you hold out the carrot of a plum placement as reward for a job well done, there is plenty of reason for kids to stop trying at the first disappointment.

handwriting

By Joyce Szuflita
I realized a year or two ago that I haven't the faintest idea what my children's (almost adult) handwriting looks like. I can tell the difference at a quick glance between my parent's similar hands (frankly I could since I was little and scrutinizing Santa's package tags for clues to his origin). I can forge my husband's curlie q's (although I never would!). I remember being very proud when my Japanese Art History Professor (who taught calligraphy) complimented me on my handwriting.

My kids are super fast typists! The problem is that their handwriting is not practiced or fast and when it comes down to SAT and AP tests, they have to hand write quite a bit and it has to legible.

Is penmanship a dying art? Check out this interesting article in the NY Times, The Case for Cursive.

Many schools use "Handwriting Without Tears" to help early writers.

Does anyone know any other good handwriting resources?

test scores are only a small piece of the puzzle

How do you judge a school?  To start you can look at the test scores. These may come in the form of the School Progress Reports (the DOE's flawed number crunching), the more nuanced but not fool-proof Quality Reviews or the number rankings given by the national websites. The black and white reality of a simple number or letter ranking is that it predicts how well your child will be able to complete a standardized test, not the quality of their education. The scores are often clung to as a measure of quality by prospective parents, but the tests are scorned by parents whose children already attend school. Assessments need to be made and there has to some kind of accountability, but the richest learning doesn't happen within test prep and the score can be a smoke screen.

You can read reviews on insideschools, study the school's website and get individual parent comments on the list serves. You can tour the schools and stand outside at 2:45 for dismissal and eyeball the parents picking up their kids. All of these are pieces of the puzzle, but none of them will give you the the kind of information about the right school for your child except the school tour that you take with your own eyes.

If you are an informed consumer, armed with the test scores and comments by others, the tour should seal the deal or expose the school as a bad fit and be the biggest factor when deciding.  Even though many parents feel that there is safety in numbers (the most popular schools must be the "best") there are many quality programs laboring in obscurity (often with smaller class sizes). If you can tour several schools, you will start to see similarities and differences. Many of the differences will be comparing apples and oranges, an old building compared to a newer building, a variety of enrichment classes compared to a fabulous afterschool, etc.

Keep your mind open. Look for exciting classrooms instead of the highest test scores. Does what you see in the classroom make sense with the school's scores. Do they seem realistic? Is the work on the bulletin board suspiciously flawless or all the same? Remember to trust your instincts. There are no guarantees in life but it is very possible to get a wonderful public education in the NYC public schools.

Parents of NY Teens

I follow the neighborhood yahoo groups of parents of young children to answer questions about nursery and elementary school, but I occasionally yearn for a group of older parents. I need friends who will talk to me about tutors and teen break ups and how to handle the coed sleepover. I have been an avid member of the yahoo group, parentsofnyteens. It is smallish and chocked full of great parents that I actually know, who are funny and generous and very, very supportive.

Just two days ago, Rachel, the moderator, did us all a wonderful service and started the Parents of NY Teens blog where she is compiling information and resources that the yahoo group members have been supplying.

Now a place for us to go! - to find about the emotions and college tours and ...(a couple of months ago there was a lively discussion on the yahoo group about how to inform your son that it was time to take a shower). I recommend that you sign up for the group, and use the information on the blog early and often!