your placement is not the reward for good work

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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.

The myth of the "best school" busted. Glory hallelujah.

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The myth of the "best school" busted. Glory hallelujah.

By Joyce Szuflita
I have been sitting in my tiny office spinning with rage about the lazy conversations that I hear around school quality. Let me say right up front this blog is NOT about equity. I think schools are better when they are filled with diverse learners and students of every race and class. Period.

This is about something else: how people talk about the elite schools that everyone is focused on. I think that the underlying premise is false and until we understand the schools with a clear eye - WE CAN’T SOLVE THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM of “school quality” which is poverty.

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Good luck.

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By Joyce Szuflita
Well, high school placement is likely to be a couple weeks late. Without confirmation, it seems like notices are probably going out on or around March 18. If you applied through MY SCHOOLS, you will likely be notified through MY SCHOOLS.

Here is the thing. Life is uncertain. You can prepare and calculate and hope. It is hard not to fall in love with one place or another, but you can’t engineer your placement. Your mission is to prepare your child (and yourself, cause you have worked hard for this!) There is no doubt that you will be disappointed for any number of reasons, possibly just because there has been so much effort and angst.

This is what I hope students will consider when they get their placement:

This school is all potential.
It will be what I make of it.
I don’t know those kids, but my new best friend for life is somewhere in that crowd.
My first love is probably in there too.
There will be a teacher that I will never forget in that building.
There will be some uncontrollable laughter.
There will be something that seemed nearly impossible that I will conquer.
I will likely be sorry to leave at the end of it all.

You can focus on what you desire, but you don’t always get it, and you might even be sorry if you did, because you would have missed the wonderful thing that appeared when you least expected it. Go out and find it.

My new year's wish for you

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By Joyce Szuflita
We didn't know what the hell we were doing when they told us to leave Methodist Hospital with two babies 23 years ago. Winging it, is what we do as parents. For good or ill, they come fully loaded with their own tendencies and talents. If you get lucky, it can sometimes be very hard to screw up and if you get a challenge, it is not always (mostly not) your fault. If you are reading this, you really care about doing a good job. Trying your damnedest is the best job that you can do. You can't engineer perfection and if you try - get ready for disappointment. The thing is, disappointment is a great place to start.

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a couple things that are still relevant

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By Joyce Szuflita
I just scrolled down to the bottom of this page and found my own blog archive!!
I started blogging around this time, 8 years ago and boy did (do) I need an editor! The nice thing about blogging is that you can write whatever the hell you damn well please. I was tickled by a couple of pieces (cause I think that I am kinda funny, much to my family's chagrin) and I was interested in my own perspective as a parent of 14 year olds, all those many years ago. Here are three of my favorites, that are still relevant and mildly amusing (even my husband said so!). Don't read the other first blogs. They are awful.
A wistful ode to 'rubber pellet season'
a sweet reminiscence (and creepy reference to cancerous recycled tires)

New Urban Team Sport (NUTS)
how I did the parent teacher conference

Sing is sung
a New York high school institution and my review of the 2008 season. If you want to understand the difference between Murrow and Stuy as institutions - it is all here.

"top 10 things I learned in the college application process" by Anon.

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"top 10 things I learned in the college application process" by Anon.

I don't take guest blogs, but I got this wonderful email from a parent whose child graduated from one of my favorite NYC public schools this spring (not Bard or Beacon or Stuy - keep guessing). She is a kid who squeezed the best out of her good old Brklyn high school experience and her hard work was rewarded by the kind of college placement you all dream of.  It is so right on the money that I though I would share it with you. Edited slightly for space. My comments in italics.

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Brooklyn! lets start a new neighborhood school search culture

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By Joyce Szuflita
There are a lot of freaked out 11 year olds out there. This middle school 'choice process' is not kind. The kids that got their heart's desire are relieved, but it is hard to be happy when your friends are not. There are some kids who got great placements but it was not the one they wanted or where their friends are going and there are kids who are headed into the unknown (or even worse - the unpopular known) and that is scarey for everyone. I know that you all feel at the mercy of this process and that your children are being tortured by an unfeeling algorithm. You have a case.

I do think that there is a very significant thing that we, as parents, can do.

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venting about middle school

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By Joyce Szuflita
I have heard too much distress from parents in the wind and now I just have to weigh in. It seems like so many people are unhappy about the fact that there are too few "good middle school options".

I have to ask. Do you mean schools with high test scores?
If you are clinging to the safety of high test scores, then you are empowering the tests and you will be supporting that culture; the stress, the prep, the high stakes and anxiety. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

If it is not high test scores, what makes a good school?

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leaving your old friends at middle school

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By Joyce Szuflita
"On top of all the stress of placement, isn't it hard for the kids to leave their old friends to go to a new middle school?" I get this a lot from the parents of young children, especially when those parents have loved their own experience growing up having the same friends k-8th grade. Often the kids’ first requirement is that they attend school where their friends are attending. This is of course impossible to engineer. What I often find is that there are unrecognized benefits to a shake up.

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i owe my soul to the company store (I mean College Board)

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I am so glad the College Board is being forced to reconsider the SAT because they finally have some competition in the college testing market. I resent their monopoly and the fact I have paid hundreds (thousands?) of dollars to them because there was virtually no other game in town. I don't begrudge them my money for a valuable service, but when that service is warped from a helpful assessment to a huge cash cow that is leading the admissions process rather than supporting it, I object.

This is times-two for twins over a 6 year period:
I have paid them for PSATs, multiple SATs, and SAT 2 times several subjects. I am not even going to mention the books for each SAT, SAT 2, and AP class. I have paid them to send all these multiple test results to 10 schools per kid (we were conservative in the number of schools that the kids applied to - many people are now doing many more).
I have paid $86 per AP test for 5 tests times two kids (and to send all of these scores to the 10 schools each kid applied to)- which, because of top scores may have helped a tiny bit in admissions but didn't yield a single credit in their highly selective private colleges which appear never to take AP scores. I pay iDOC every year to record my tax returns to these schools so that I can apply for financial aid. I am not even adding in my time spent on traveling to the myriad of tests, scheduling and working my way through their system, or the hours and days of childhood wasted. What a racket!

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st. crispin's day

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By Joyce Szuflita
Even though St. Crispin's Day isn't until Oct., when I think about the parents and students preparing to enter new kindergartens, middle schools or high schools in the fall...

I can't help but hear Shakespeare's rousing words from Henry V.

if you start to get cold feet over the summer, thinking about the possible challenges ahead, replace "going to battle against a huge French army" with "entering a kindergarten class in a brand new school" and imagine your Principal giving this, the granddaddy of all motivational speeches.

we happy few,

we band of brothers...

teachers salaries: public vs private

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By Joyce Szuflita
There was an interesting quiry on Park Slope Parents this month about teacher's salaries. It is a bit of an apples and oranges conversation. I have some links if you want to do more reading. It appears that public school teachers win out pretty clearly on salaries and benefits, but private school teachers may have some quality of life benefits (smaller class size and no state testing requirements). Both jobs are very challenging (no one has it easy!).

Here are some links, but you need to filter out the politics (right wing, anti union; left wing, pro union, etc.)

National Center for Education Statistics

ehow:money

edudemic

NY Times: Opinion

NYC DoE

salary.com

making decisions

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By Joyce Szuflita
This is the time of year when parents agonize over decisions. April, May and occasionally in June, I will sit down at my desk with a cup of coffee and at 8am, put on my headphones, and take 15 and 30 min. calls all day until 6:30. There are some days in April when I feel like I am an air traffic controller with planes stacked up over O'Hare. Parents circling, looking for a safe landing...

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new years resolutions for parents of 2008 birthday children

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By Joyce Szuflita
1. Don't panic. There is no need and people who panic drown. Stay calm and centered and when "that mom" at the playground tells you that you are screwed because you didn't do this-and-such or didn't get into "the" school. Drop her. She is trouble and she is not correct, and your poor spouse will have to spend a week talking you down, when you should have been laughing with your child.

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i was a new school parent

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By Joyce Szuflita
I mentioned that I had some experience in a new school in the last blog and I thought it might be interesting for you to know a little more about that experience, lest you think I am just making all this "positive change" stuff up. I am sending this out as a love letter to the families considering the "new program" in Park Slope, PS 705 and New American Academy in District 17, PS 414 in Williamsburg and the myriad of new charter programs that are popping up in many districts, including BUGS Middle School that I hope will find a home in fall of 2013. My kids attended a local, diverse, strong and established elementary - our new school experience came at middle school. If you think that this doesn't apply to your situation - let me say that it I think it is a lot easier to "pioneer" at elementary when the kids are little and mostly under the influence of their parents.

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