Here’s a NY Times article about the pressure experienced by five-year-olds (or their parents, perhaps) when applying to the city’s most competitive public elementary schools.
Some of the questions raised by this are:m
Do you think where you went to elementary school matters in the long run? Will entering children into competitive programs at an early age benefit them or hurt them?
Since most of the parents who seek top-tier elementary schools for their children are upper income professionals and many of these top elementary schools are located in the city’s most affluent neighborhoods, does this system exclude New York’s poor students from better educational opportunities? Or, alternately, is a merit-based system a better alternative to zoning, which forces students to attend school with peers from mostly the same socioeconomic background?
I think that going to a top-tier school in kindergarden does not matter very much in the long run – all it would do is to instill a sense of competitiveness in the child. This is both good and bad, good because it sets a culture of expectation and hard work but bad because it keeps kids from being kids. I feel that since the competition for elementary schools is beginning to mirror the college application process, it will inherit the same problems of racial imbalance and lack of diversity. Actually, it might have more problems because the students here are five years old. If you were in charge of admissions in an elementary school, what do you look for in an applicant? At least in the college process you have grades, prestigious awards, volunteer work, competitions, etc. by which the student can be judged by merit. We cannot expect a five year old to have the same types of things. Therefore, the admissions person would undoubtedly look at social class and race in order to judge, right? Therefore, I think that competition for elementary schools will become problematic. Any other opinions anyone?
I agree that instilling a sense of hyper-competitiveness (and stress, pressure, rejection, etc) in a small kid is not a good thing, but on the other hand I feel that education in early childhood is very important in setting the child up for success later on–the quality of our elementary schools should not be taken lightly. Ideally, every child should get a high-quality elementary school education. But I don’t think that the best way to achieve a high-quality education is through selecting certain kids to attend top-tier schools, because of the problems Gautam mentioned… and how do you even choose which kids to accept to the top-tier schools? Aren’t most five-year-olds very similar? At that age, aren’t they all (for the time being) at pretty much the same level?
Not all five year olds are at the same level. Kindergarten is where basic skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic are learned, but some students come in with those skills. Kids can learn to read as early as two or three years old. Some don’t learn the skill until age six or seven. Although affluence may influence this, it does not in every case, especially if you are looking at the middle class.
Although it would be easier for teachers if all of their students were at the same reading level, it still may not justify such a competitive process.
They have officially created a common app for kindergardeners.
Paulina makes a fair argument that not all five year-olds are on the same academic level, but we have to remember that not every one of those 67,000 children is a perfect gifted youth. This has become about parents wanting their children to get the best education possible, and I am actually quite excited to see that we are latching on to improving such early development because it’s no secret that the elementary-staged kids are cerebral sponges.
However, the system for following through with this goal is not perfect. What can five-year olds possibly put on an application? Is it completely based on testing? If so, even if they are gifted, five year olds may be more tempted to go play outside with friends then take a test their parents are forcing upon them. I think it’s a great idea to enroll children in these incredible programs, but we need to create a system that sorts them better.
(However, even trying to rationalize a judgement system for kindergarden-academia seems laughable)
It’s interesting to see an article published about this topic because I have recently talked about this with a friend. Because she was an international student coming into college, she did know much about the New York education system, especially the coveted specialized high schools. We were actually sitting in a restaurant right next to a private elementary school when we started discussing education in NY. As I was telling her the process of the SHSAT and whatnot, she told me a story about her boss. As it turns out, her boss told her that if a child in the city does not get into a great kindergarten program, this will greatly diminish the chance of the child to get into better schools later on in life (i.e. specialized HS, Ivy League prep schools [Dalton, Chapin, etc.], prestigious universities). Furthermore, my friend told me that some hospitals are partnered with certain schools. Newborns are registered into whatever school the parents desired, and they will have a greater chance of acceptance once they are ready for kindergarten/pre-K. This surprised me a lot, and for the most part I do not agree with what the boss said.
The idea of registering your newborn into a school sounds a lot like the Hunger Games; it’s like sacrificing a child without their consent. I mean the child obviously does not have a say on where he/she goes to school, but parents shouldn’t immediately subject their child to a school right after they’re born. As mentioned before, some of the best kindergarten programs targets high income families. This leaves the rest, which is also the majority, to fight for seats in the public schools.
I agree with Bethany that what we need is a change in how schools accept children. As Paulina said, not all five year olds are on the same level. The opportunity for better education should not be based on income but rather on merit. If a child is gifted, he/she should be accepted regardless of income.
This relates a lot to things we have talked about in class. We have talked a lot about racial discrepancies in higher education and how we can bridge that gap. Mayor De Blasio has advocated for more importance placed on early childhood education as a method to ensure that students from all different backgrounds get the same opportunities. It seems like this change in the way that parents can sign their kids up for kindergarten would be a part of that plan. However, at the end of the day, the children form affluent families are going to have more resources to prepare for applications and see more schools.