No Kindergarten for You: The 2011 edition

"But inevitably, some parents are forced to choose schools they do not prefer."

Every child in NYC is guaranteed a spot.

You might not like the spot you're given, but that's yet another aspect of city living. Don't like it? Pony up the $35K for a spot in a private school ... or move to the suburbs.

Matt, You have a steely resolve in the face of adversity.

Except of course when it involves open kitchens, insulting coop boards and paying nannies, among other things. Then you usually go batshit.

It is amazing the the powers-that-be do not foresee the looming problem the city will face. The vast majority of current residents are slowly but surely being priced out. Living in NYC means you make sacrifices and everyone that has lived here for long enough knows that those sacrifices are well worth it (at least to us but everyone else doesn't matter right?) I have to think there is a breaking point though. When families with both parents working full time earning $500k+/year cannot afford a "decent" apt and send their children to a good school so they decide on a less desireable neighborhood or apt but a good school or a nice apt but not so good school....but now the problem is that the number of options/sacrifices people can actually make are disappearing. What will we be left with? It's a shame. This city needs schools. Most parents want what is best for their children and will make sacrifices for them day in day out. If you build them they will come. Also NYCMatt....have you tried getting your child into one of those $35k/yr private schools? Most of those schools are the equivalent of paying $2mln for a 2 bedroom walkup on 1st Ave. Like I said there is a point where things are just not worth it anymore.

It's like Groucho Marx said: "Comedy is when you fall off a cliff and die. Tragedy is when I stub my toe." To paraphrase for Matt: "Comedy is when 5-year-olds have to take the subway to school. Tragedy is when a coop board approves an open kitchen."

tragedy is when a child can't go to school at all, not when he can't go to the school his parents want him in. these articles come out every year, and every year they somehow find places for every child. the nyc school system has a million students in it, and we are supposed to be shocked when, every spring, a few hundred have to wait to find places?

the problem with the school system isn't that every parent can't send his child to the school he wants. the problem is that so many of the schools are bad.

Wait another 3 years, when the baby boom of the oughts meets the dearth of middle school options. It's going to be really interesting.

Last year, the waitlists cleared for the most part on the UWS. Some would argue that it's because families moved to the burbs or paid for private instead of dealing with uncertainty. I wonder what's going to happen this September.

Maly: Not 3 years, 2 years when we get the middle school placements for this year's 3rd grade. That's the start of the bulge up here. As long as the space exists somewhere on the UWS, my prediction is that the BOE will start a new school.

Happyrenter: kinda my sentiments. Macro forces beyond my control. All I can do is keep on attending as many CEC meetings, write as many petitions, without sounding like a crazed loon. It's too bad that we can't somehow harness the energy of more people so we can start improving things beyond our neighborhood.

Actually, tragedy involves the downfall of a great person due to his/her's shortcomings (tragic flaws). So none of the above need apply (except maybe the guy who actually works for the school system and can't get his kid in to his neighborhood school he oversees, but I don't know enough about his efforts or flaws to make a judgment).

But getting back to real estate, and away from the relevance of whether some characters are more or less sympathetic than others, people have been paying premiums to live in certain neighborhoods and whether it is school overcrowding or large trash hauling garages, the city does or omits to do certain things that can impact or destroy the value of that premium.

In any event I enjoyed the Groucho quote. thanks.

Nyc10023, knowing it takes 2-3 years to build a school, now would be the time to identify districts without enough middle schools and get going, but I have a feeling the city is going to pretend to be shocked, shocked when the problem hits them in the face. Dealing with the DOE is very frustrating, and so far Cathleen Black has proven herself to be the perfect bureaucrat: lots of meaningless words, no plans or actions.

Maly: I only know some of what's happening in D3, and I can tell you that the CEC is pretty much 24/7 showing them our stats. The DOE knows about the 3rd grade bulge (literally 2x previous year's graduating class) and not everyone is going to go private or move. There is some tiny morsel of comfort in the fact that the DOE has shown itself able to start up a new zoned school like that, stat. New zoned middle will be harder, but not impossible. I also wonder if the UWS has a huge image/PR issue at the DOE - they seem to have dealt with D2 & D1 better in the past. Maybe we should be more nicey-nice with Bloomberg.

Also, the DOE is half-hoping that when the bulge hits, what'll happen (if they don't start a new school) is that those 5th graders will get a slot at previously underenrolled middles and at least some of them will go. That would be a huge demographic change for those middles, and maybe time will take care of the schools' reputations.