Marc Ribot on HS admissions and the failure of "choice"
It is ironic that as the number of high school "choices" have multiplied under this administraion, more and more students fail to be admitted to any of them. Ten percent, or more than 8,000 NYC 8th graders, got none of their top ten choices for high school next year. Marc Ribot, NYC parent, comments:Ten percent is an unconscionable number: but I’d like to share a few reflections on how this system has failed all of us- not just those who have not been placed.
My own daughter got into Frank Sinatra, and is happy with her choice. But what will she find when she’s there? How many to a class in the face of budget cuts and teacher lay-offs? This isn’t only the result of ‘the economy’, but of bad political choices: of gradual privatization through a shift to ‘charter schools’, de-unionization , a program of breaking up larger schools into smaller ones which has multiplied administrative costs without producing any measurable benefits
