<p>Did anyone see Nightline on Friday night? There was a piece on the lengths that parents are going to to get their toddlers into the best kindergartens. The segment was entitled “Kindergarten Confidential”. I wonder where they got the idea for that title?</p>
<p>That’s funny. I didn’t see the segment, but I can relate a little. I remember how I worried that I was putting my kids in the right pre-school, then whether they should go to the public school or the parochial school for their elementary education, then whether to keep them in that K-8 school or place them in a middle school instead, and finally which high school would be the best for them (private, their home school or one of the 4 other public choice schools they could go to.) Looking back I wonder if it was silly of me to worry at all as they would have been fine anywhere. On the other hand, each of my kids excelled in school and didn’t get into any trouble socially (so far anyway) so maybe it was right to worry and look at all my choices before choosing. Now we are in the same situation for our hs senior choosing colleges…hopefully he chose the right one, but based on past experiences, he probably has.</p>
<p>Does CC have a Class of 2030 forum?</p>
<p>Does anyone remember the Tracey Ullman show? She did a hilarious skit about interviewing for preschool…a riot.</p>
<p>Yeah, well I lived it. When I lived in the city in a high rise, if your kids did not go to one of the three main choices of schools, you were pretty much on your own in terms of car pooling and doing things together. That my son was in on of those schools made life a hundred times easier. I worked then, and had no family or close friends there, so it was a big deal thing. </p>
<p>When I moved to an area where I was free to take care of things myself, I had nothing to do with all of that.</p>
<p>I wasn’t crazy, but if you want a private education many of the better private schools have way more applicants than spots available. It does make you a little nutty to sweat over whether little johnny will be all they want during their visit day. </p>
<p>If you are in an area where public schools don’t cut it, you join that merry go round during preschool!</p>
<p>In some places you can pay big bucks to have someone prep your little darling to ace the screening exam. The fear is if you don’t get into the right k-garden you won’t get into the right prep and you can kiss the Ivies good-bye. </p>
<p>The horror.</p>
<p>I have no idea why this is so, but every so often there is a thread about kindergarten or pre-school admissions, and there’s always a set of posters that want to latch on to the idea that the parents that buy into all this are crazy and arrogant and think unnecessarily highly of their children. It turns out that the education system in New York is really hard to navigate, and that there are some pretty difficult choices to make. Other posters that are more familiar with New York could explain all the issues better than me, but it turns out that these parents aren’t so crazy after all. I don’t know why people want to believe that so much though.</p>
<p>I watched the show, actually. Parents were paying a lot of money for coaches/tutors to help their children pass an exam that screened for a “talented and gifted” program in NYC. Apparently, once in, the children stay on that track, even though, as the show’s narrator told us, studie show that the kids who pass such exams do not necessarily end up any more gifted than peers (narrator had actual numbers).</p>
<p>There were tears on the part of parents, and children, and everyone on the program appeared to be extremely misguided, putting stress on very young children to get into a program with little real justification for its existence. But that was also clearly the editorial intent.</p>
<p>There was an interview with the head of the NYC school system as well, in which he explained the need for the “gifted and talented” program. The case he made was, to me, weak.</p>
<p>I felt the ultimate blame should lie with a school administration that would create such a program for 5year-olds, sanctioning a high stress exam for 4 year-olds, when all the research points to the fact that such giftedness is not really established at that age. (In fact, I have read that many gifted students actually read LATER!) To take it a step further, I am not sure that gifted programs are a good idea at any age, but that’s personal opinion and I expect others will post with feelings that are different.</p>
<p>Even without a “gifted and talented” program, schools have become nightmarishly intense for young children. Even in my relaxed small town, kindergarten is all day and academic, with 5 year-olds doing what kids used to do in 1st, 2nd or even 3rd grade. It’s sad. Education is not a race, and the best way for kids that age to develop their brains is still largely through play. </p>
<p>The Harvard and MIT admissions folks will echo this sentiment, ironically.</p>
<p>In my area, ‘gifted and talented’ is largely meaningless since there are so many kids in… At the elementary level G&T is largely correlated to the amount of time Mom spends volunteering, and they do not learn any thing different. At the middle school, honors classes are simply one class ahead, and at the high school it’s how much you can coax the counselor.</p>
<p>Schools are too busy running standardized tests and checking hair and skirt lengths to notice true geniuses.</p>
<p>Why is this site called College Confidential? I’ve always wondered.</p>
<p>^because we say HYPSM and never use the full names of colleges</p>
<p>Blame Mamie van Doren and Steve Allen.</p>
<p>We lived in Soho in Manhattan when my wife was pregnant with our oldest child. People she knew and people she didn’t would come up to her and ask her if she was preregistered for certain pre-schools – if you didn’t get in to them, you wouldn’t get in to the right kindergarten and then private schools and then Harvard. We moved out of the state and our son is a junior at an elite LAC even though he didn’t attend any of those schools.</p>
<p>Well…as a NYC parent whose offspring attended a G+T program, those parents aren’t crazy. </p>
<p>There was an article recently about how the # of “gifted” children in NYC has skyrocketed. A large part of it is test prep–and if anyone here paid for a kid to take a SAT prep course, then, IMO, (s)he has no right to criticize parents who engage in test prep. However, there are two other factors that have lead to this. A lot of middle class folks are choosing to stay in NYC and raise their kids here. A lousy economy means fewer folks are willing and able to pay for private schools. </p>
<p>I didn’t pay for a prep course for the test, so I’m not being defensive. But, if your kid does make the cut-off it may mean much better options. </p>
<p>I don’t understand how folks can move to places like Mamoroneck, Scarsdale or New Trier in part so their kids can attend “good schools” and then criticize folks who want their kids to get into the best programs in a weaker school system.</p>
<p>Testing for G+T programs, BTW, has nothing to do with reading ability.</p>
<p>I don’t think either the parents or the district is crazy, though the whole thing is kind of unfortunate. I agree that G&T is a dumb label, and I’m glad we didn’t have it when I was growing up. But my kids were in a different urban district that fortunately didn’t identify G&T until 3rd grade. No one prepped, but there was a ton of anxiety, because the label guaranteed a spot in an “honors” middle school program.</p>
<p>IMO, G&T programs in urban districts aren’t mostly about G&T education (my kids, after being labelled, got ABSOLUTELY no benefit from the designation - you could do honors without being G&T). They are about retaining the middle class and/or smart motivated families to stick with the public schools. I’m guessing that NYC needs to do it in kindergarten, because that’s when they will lose families without the availability of those programs. The promise of retaining that special status for all time is a big part of the lure to keep those families. So I think its unfortunate, but I imagine the reality is that many of those families would move to private schools or out of the district if they didn’t have the G&T option.</p>
<p>If you can prep for a test, then it isn’t a true test of gifted-ness.</p>
<p>My son was recommended for G&T by his teachers EVERY year, and every year he wasn’t selected. I never did figure that out!</p>