In my town, there is one topic that comes up in almost any conversation between parents, and it is the state of the school system. For parents of kids approaching kindergarten, it’s pretty much the only topic of discussion.
My town, a city, really, is particularly diverse: racially, ethnically, socioeconomically. When I went to the public schools here, there were something like 80 languages spoken in the high school. Cool, right?
But it’s an urban school district, and brings with it all the problems that that entails. Even in my day, there were guns and gangs in the high school. About a quarter of the class didn’t graduate and only about half went to college. Yet, in addition to programs targeting those who needed extra help, enrichment programs for those who needed, well, enrichment, abounded, from elementary school on. It was possible to get a great, challenging education, and the top students went to great schools in the Ivy League and equivalent.
Since I graduated, eons ago, there’s been more “white flight.” For instance, the Jewish day school has doubled in size, leaving almost no Jews in the public schools. And the city seems to systematically do away with program after program that was targeted at advanced students. Enrichment programs in the elementary schools? Gone. Grouping and honors classes in middle school? Gone. Foreign languages? Except in one impossible-to-get-into magnet elementary, not until 7th grade. To complain about the lack of enrichment opportunities is to be called racist.
I went and toured our district elementary school and was encouraged in some ways and discouraged in more. I liked the Vice Principal, who showed me around and gave me an hour and a half of her time, and I felt good about what she is trying to do for the school. But I have been having great difficulty getting beyond the fact that, despite attending these schools herself and then spending her life as a teacher and administrator here, she sent her own kids to private school. There was some b.s. about her daughter having been ill as an infant and that she felt overprotective of her, so sent her to private, then felt she couldn’t send one to private and the others to public, blah blah blah. She is not the only teacher/administrator of the public schools that I know who has sent their own children or grandchildren elsewhere, so what does that say?
I don’t care much about the kids ending up at elite colleges, but I do care about them being challenged appropriately, learning how to learn, and enjoying the process of learning. I care about six hours of every day not being wasted. I can help them by sharing my culture and my values, by talking to them about books and world events, by paying for viola and karate and the like. But I can’t offer them challenges math and science and history in the two or three hours betweenwhen we get home and when they go to bed every night.
I love my city. I love the diversity and the amenities. I love being conveniently located near several employment centers and strategically located in an area with limited traffic, as well as and in onerous but not deadly commuting distance of NYC, should either of us ever need to work there again. I love my house, although a second bathroom would be nice.
The only option that is financially feasible for us would essentially double our commute, taking away about 45 minutes/day from time with the kids. Summer Fridays would be impossible. (At least for me. A gets short summer Fridays, damn him.) We’d give up any prospect of diversity. But we’d be getting a town that prides itself on its education and is spilling over with extra help for kids at both ends of the spectrum. To me, particularly after having seen how bad a bad school experience can be, even for one year, that opportunity is getting harder and harder to resist.
