4 ms·

NYT articles with a NYC focus are fascinating to me as an outsider. One thing that jumps out at me, spending my entire life west of the Mississippi river, is th

by iigs 18y ago

NYT articles with a NYC focus are fascinating to me as an outsider. One thing that jumps out at me, spending my entire life west of the Mississippi river, is that NYC appears to just give their schools numbers: Public Schools 6, 59 and 290 on the Upper East Side, and P.S. 87 on the Upper West Side In the states I've lived in the schools have always had "friendly" names, and are never referred to by their numbers, if they even have one. Furthermore, the phenomenon described in the article reeks of "helicopter parenting", and seems like it might be particularly easy to find in (nearly unique to) NYC. I have no data to back up my prejudice, but between the stereotype of overbearing New England parents and the probable variance in school qualities in an urban area it's not surprising. In the midwest where I grew up and in Seattle where I live now it's not particularly common to stress over where your children go to school; you optimize if convenient, but most of the choices are pretty good. Likewise, my perception about life in Houston was that some of the schools were pretty bad but given the low cost of living anyone who cared either already lived in the suburbs or made so much money that they could easily afford to send their kids to another school.

awad 18y ago
Most, if not all, of our elementary and middle schools do have "friendly" names, and as far as I'm aware all the high schools have and go by actual names. Examples: I went to PS 230 and 217, the names of which I never knew nor can remember now, then to Cunningham IS 234, and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School. And, having gone through the public school system in NYC, I can tell you first hand that the right district can make all the difference, mostly because of the environment. A smart student will always be a smart student, but a smart student in a poor environment might well end up incredibly bored when he is unable to move beyond the level that the school teaches at. The largest problem facing the NYC school system has been, for years, the high student to teacher ratio. When I was in elementary, the number was something like 32:1, at one point I remember having 36 kids in my 4th or 5th grade class. The benefit that 'good' schools and districts have are that they usually don't have to abide by the same standards as the rest of the city in teaching and course material. So, while class size might still be rather large (it's gotten better I'm told), teachers are at least free to teach at a higher level and hopefully make a bigger impact.
jlees 18y ago
It's the same in the UK; generally, people are happy with one of the local state schools (a 'public' school here is a posh private school). However, there are definitely a certain set of parents who go to extreme lengths to get little Bobby in the Right State School, since the quality varies so much. There are frequently TV programmes and newspaper articles about parents who move just to get their kids in certain schools; who have second homes and pretend they live there; who buy to sublet etc; all just to be in the catchment area for particular schools. It's understandable on one level, but still ridiculous.

by iigs 18y ago

awad 18y ago

Most, if not all, of our elementary and middle schools do have "friendly" names, and as far as I'm aware all the high schools have and go by actual names. Examples: I went to PS 230 and 217, the names of which I never knew nor can remember now, then to Cunningham IS 234, and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School. And, having gone through the public school system in NYC, I can tell you first hand that the right district can make all the difference, mostly because of the environment. A smart student will always be a smart student, but a smart student in a poor environment might well end up incredibly bored when he is unable to move beyond the level that the school teaches at. The largest problem facing the NYC school system has been, for years, the high student to teacher ratio. When I was in elementary, the number was something like 32:1, at one point I remember having 36 kids in my 4th or 5th grade class. The benefit that 'good' schools and districts have are that they usually don't have to abide by the same standards as the rest of the city in teaching and course material. So, while class size might still be rather large (it's gotten better I'm told), teachers are at least free to teach at a higher level and hopefully make a bigger impact.

jlees 18y ago

It's the same in the UK; generally, people are happy with one of the local state schools (a 'public' school here is a posh private school). However, there are definitely a certain set of parents who go to extreme lengths to get little Bobby in the Right State School, since the quality varies so much. There are frequently TV programmes and newspaper articles about parents who move just to get their kids in certain schools; who have second homes and pretend they live there; who buy to sublet etc; all just to be in the catchment area for particular schools. It's understandable on one level, but still ridiculous.