Last night, I read my daughters Bread and Jam for Frances. My favorite part is the end, when Frances relishes every bite of her sophisticated boxed lunch (Lobster salad! Cream of tomato soup!) and “makes it all come out even.” Alas, in my house, a steady diet of peanut butter and jelly has done nothing to make picky Night Owl beg for something new. Cafeteria lunch? Forget it! We’ve tried. Each time, she eschews the healthier options in favor of a white hamburger bun dipped in ketchup. I figure we’re better off packing lunch.

Volunteering in the lunchroom, I’ve seen an impressive variety of homemade offerings on display. There are Caribbean stews and colorful Chinese stir-fries. My friend Min, who is from Korea, makes her son freshly steamed rice, on which she arranges black beans into a letter of the day. All of these lunches look healthy and hearty, and the children devour them.

A recent New York Times article detailed the art of the bento box; some of their examples dazzlingly intricate. If I had hours to spend sculpting bunnies out of food and thought it would coax Night Owl to eat more, perhaps I would perfect this craft. And I do get the idea of the bento box: to juxtapose as many colors, textures and food groups as possible, for nutritional value and visual appeal. A friend of mine packs Laptop Lunches, westernized bento boxes she says force her to create a varied and balanced meal — and leftovers work just fine for filling the compartments. (more…)

Dear Judy,

My child is eligible for the gifted and talented program in NYC, and I have a question regarding his future. If he does not perform well or meet the criteria for the program in several years, would he be forced to change schools, or would he receive extra support/tutoring, etc.?

~ Christina

Dear Christina,

These days, the watchword at the Department of Education is “data”. All schools keep track of their students’ academic achievement. This applies to kids in the gifted and talented programs, as well as the general classes. If your child is struggling, the teacher should let you know and discuss with you what kind of help the school can provide. It may be tutoring or, if appropriate, counseling. If the strategies don’t work, the school may suggest placing the child in a general education class in the same school, or, in extreme cases, if he is attending out of district, transferring him back to his zoned school. Chancellor’s Regulations A-101 and A-450 establish a chain of events, including parent conferences and extra help before a transfer is put on the table.

At the start of your child’s career in G&T, if the school has not already shared its policy with you, ask what their expectations are, what kind of help will be available to a student who falls behind, and how they will handle a child who seems to be mismatched with the program. You should also keep in touch with your son’s teachers so you can be aware of any difficulties right away.

Remember, in addition to personal observations and teacher conferences, you can keep abreast of your child’s progress by logging on to ARIS (Achievement Reporting and Innovation System ) from third grade on, to view state exam results. You can log on to Acuity for interim assessment results. The principal should provide you with an ID and instructions for using these databases, which have only recently become available to parents.

During the early grades, kindergarten through third grade, you will find that the best way to keep in touch is by participating in your son’s school, through the Parents Association or, if you have the time, by volunteering in his classroom.

Meanwhile, enjoy the summer while looking forward to the new term.

Judy

 Have a school question for Judy?  Search archives | Contact Judy

The Department of Education announced on their website that score notifications for applicants to elementary school gifted and talented programs would not be released today, as scheduled, but on Monday instead. Last year, the process was delayed repeatedly and students’ placements were eventually delivered by a courier service. Parents who were closely watching the Department of Education website last night noticed that around 5 p.m. the timeline changed from May 1 notification to notification “shortly”. (more…)

The hundreds of kindergarteners on waiting lists for schools all over the city are not the only sign of crowding in the schools, as many schools fear being forced to open extra classes in rooms that are now used for art and music. Rather than looking for the source of these failures in enrollment projections or capital planning, the Department of Education is going on the offensive against parents. In this case, their target is parents and parent associations who fund part-time arts, chess, and assistant teachers to make up for DOE shortfalls. The new DOE approach threatens to end services for hundreds if not thousands of children.

In a series of letters and school visits, the DOE has asserted that parents must hand their money over to DOE, subject to DOE rules about timing and amounts, before that money can be used to pay for part time aides and enrichment. A few years ago Klein abolished Project Arts, the program that used to reserve funds to ensure that all public school kids would receive music, dance, and visual arts. Now the DOE is trying to crack down on parents’ efforts to provide access to these fundamentals of a decent education. (more…)

Only 100 parents attended the District 3 kindergarten lottery last week after the Department of Education announced that many popular schools did not have available seats.

“Parents were disappointed that they didn’t have a full range of options as they have had in the past four years since the lottery has been in operation,” said Robin Aronow, founder of School Search NYC, who attended the lottery.

The announcement, made on the Friday before the April 21 lottery, dealt a blow to the roughly 760 hopeful families seeking an alternative to their neighborhood school. A few of the most desirable schools, such as PS 87 and PS 166, had no seats available. And of the 251 openings, parents were informed that several schools, such as PS 9, would only be able to accept students with older siblings enrolled at the school. (more…)

Journalist and occasional Insideschools blogger Lauren Young comments on kindergarten admissions:

What if your child didn’t get into kindergarten at your local public school? As reported here, the waiting list for a spot at highly lauded P.S. 41 or P.S. 3 has reached 90 children. My son’s best friend Ben is among those shut out in the West Village; he’s No. 79 on the wait list. Ben’s mom is worried that he will start asking if he did something “wrong” because he wasn’t accepted to kindergarten at P.S. 41. “I so resent New York for all this,” she says. “They’ll place him ’somewhere,’ but…I just don’t want him ’somewhere,’ you know? Ugh.” The problem seems most severe on the Upper East Side, where 350 children cannot get into kindergarten at their local schools, according to Class Size Matters. and Department of Education planners are considering siting a new kindergarten in the basement of a crowded, popular East Side middle school.

On Tuesday, May 5 at 3:30 pm, Ben’s mom and other concerned parents will rally on the steps of City Hall to protest school overcrowding. (The rally is sponsored by Class Size Matters, Manhattan Task Force on School Overcrowding, Community Education Council of District 2, Parent Leaders of Upper East Side Schools, Public School Advocacy Committee, Community Board 2 and other groups.)

This madness probably feels familiar to veterans of New York City’s preschool admissions scramble. Indeed, Nursery University is a new movie about the insanity of landing a coveted spot at a desirable private-school, pre-kindergarten program. (It’s more competitive than getting accepted to an Ivy League school!) I see a sequel in the works: Kindergarten Wars, coming to theaters, and Netflix queues, all too soon.

Stories today in the Daily News and on the Huffington Post highlight parent frustrations with kindergarten enrollment; chatter we’re hearing describes hundreds of children waitlisted for the most desirable Manhattan primary schools. Up to 90 children are waitlisted at PS 3 and PS 41,popular schools that share a zone in Greenwich Village; Department of Education spokesperson Andy Jacob cautions patience as this plays out. Parents on the waitlist received letters from the DOE outlining the process.

Many forces are at play in kindergarten admissions. Changes this year to an application process that allows families to apply to multiple schools, along with what’s widely perceived to be increased demand for public schools, have caused their share of confusion. Here’s what we’ve learned about the two schools in question:

PS 3 and PS 41 each had more than 100 kindergarten students in 2007-08, according to the most recent data posted on the DOE website. It’s too early to say whether either school will open new classes to permit zoned children to enroll, or if class sizes will increase.

Because there were more applicants than seats available, the schools held a lottery and some families in the zone are waitlisted for both schools. The schools themselves maintain the lists, Jacob says, and families can call the schools to learn their place on the list.

Jacob says that much of the process is still incomplete — for example, gifted & talented test results go out late next week, with placement decisions anticipated in early June. “There are several schools in Manhattan and other boroughs that have wait lists for zoned students,” he said, noting that every year there are wait lists.

The DOE is gathering wait list information this month and will be looking at ways for schools to absorb as many zoned students as possible, Jacob said. Options could include increasing kindergarten class size, opening new classrooms (which could involve converting art studios or science labs to make room), and — as a last resort — capping a school’s enrollment and directing children to another school in the same zone.

Gotham Schools is reporting that embattled PS 20 principal Sean Keaton has asked for a meeting, via the Times’ local blog, to hear parent concerns about his administration, citing coverage on Insideschools.org and in the Brooklyn Paper.

Demand for the school, and for other nearby public schools, has risen as the Fort Greene-Clinton Hill neighborhood has experienced an influx of young families (read: outspoken parents). But another piece of the puzzle deserves a mention: One of the two new citywide gifted and talented programs the Department of Education plans to open in September will be sited at PS 20 and fall under Principal Keaton’s leadership come September.

No details yet about the time or the place of the proposed meeting.

My brother and I are almost fluent in Spanish, which is our second language, largely because our parents both speak fluent Spanish and we have traveled to a lot of Spanish-speaking countries in our lives. Many native English speakers do not have the opportunity to travel and don’t have parents who speak a second language, so they rely on their schools to teach foreign language. That is unfortunate, because in my observation, it is very difficult to reach any real proficiency in a second language from our public school foreign-language curriculum.

As far as I can tell, learning to speak a foreign language is not a serious priority in New York City’s public schools. There is no expectation of fluency, or even mastery. Second language is not taught at all in many elementary schools. At my old middle school, M.S. 51, language classes covered the same things three years in a row. As former M.S. 51 student Abby Beatty said, “In eighth grade I was still learning “¿Quien cocina el taco? Mi mama cocina el taco.” ( Who cooks the taco? My mom cooks the taco.) Many high schools, including my own (LaGuardia), only require one year of language.

The idea that learning another language is not as valuable as doing math or studying history is a bad message to send to kids. Learning to speak another language is beyond valuable, it is essential in a city as diverse as New York, and in a world where students in other countries begin to learn English in grade school. New York leads the world in art, fashion and commerce; why can’t our schools lead the country in foreign language education?

[Editor’s Note: State and city graduation requirements mandate a single year of foreign language instruction in high school, no more.]

WARNING: This blog may include spoilers for the Twilight series.

A few weeks ago I was talking to my neighbor, a 10 year-old boy at PS 321 in Brooklyn, and found out that he had just started reading Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. Many of his friends and classmates were doing the same. This surprised me. I knew Twilight had engaged middle- and high-school readers, but I hadn’t realized it had reached a far as fifth-grade boys. And I was more than a little disturbed by this.

I’ve tried to find a non-biased summary of Twilight online, but it doesn’t seem to exist. So the following is my (very biased), but completely accurate, summary: The Twilight series is the story of Bella, a young girl who, in the first two books, falls in love with a vampire (Edward) and a werewolf (Jacob). She then spends the next two books pining over them, threatening to kill herself when one of them leaves her, distancing herself from her friends (so it’s not too hard to say goodbye when she finally becomes a vampire herself to join Edward), jumping off cliffs (to “hear Edward’s voice” getting mad at her), and purposely endangering herself so she will be rescued by these supernatural non-men.

Despite all its modern trappings, the girls of Twilight are still girly girls, and the boys are traditional manly men. More specifically: The boys are muscular and unwaveringly brave, while the girls bake cookies, make supper for the men and hold all-female slumber parties. It gets worse for feminists: Bella is regularly threatened with violence in the first three books, and in every instance she is rescued by Edward or Jacob. In the third book she describes herself as ‘helpless and delicious.”

Is that how we want young girls defining themselves? This is 2009: What about capable and strong? The Twilight books indicate that being “helpless and delicious” are attractive and desirable qualities. And are these hunky netherworld types the role models for young boys to follow? The young men in Twilight are all head over heels for Bella Swan.

Beth Handman, PS 321’s assistant principal, says, “It is a perennial problem in elementary schools that children who are sophisticated readers end up with books laden with concepts that are beyond their emotional development. Young children can be very vulnerable to messages in literature. It would be best if children could wait until they were older to read these kinds of books.”

If that means they’re reading books like Twilight, parents and teachers should be familiar with the content and engage them in conversations on the messages and morals. Better yet, read it yourself — and decide whether it’s right for your child.

Editor’s Note:  Due to a technical error, we published an incomplete citation and link in the post above.  Insideschools regrets any confusion, and thanks the sharp-eyed reader who brought the matter to our attention. 

Before and after school tomorrow, parents and education advocates will rally outside PS 125 in Harlem to protest the Department of Education’s exclusion of the community (and the Community Education Council) from local zoning decisions, which CECs are legally bound to review and approve. PS 125 currently enrolls student in grades 3 through 6, receiving students from PS 36, which covers pre-K through grade 2. The DOE has decided that PS 36 will expand to include older students, curtailing the stream of students that has long fed PS 125, and that PS 125 will lose its sixth grade.

That block of West 125th street is one of the most school-dense zones in town: PS 125 shares its building with the Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering, which will eventually span grades 6 through 12 — and its next door neighbor is the well-regarded KIPP Star College Prep Charter School.

Still looking for an elementary or middle school for your child? You might want to consider one of the new schools opening in September. In addition to the new high schools and charter schools opening this fall, 26 schools with elementary and middle school grades will also open their doors. Many of these schools will replace schools that the Department of Education has slated to close over the next few years, but others will open to alleviate overcrowding and offer families more school choice.

Bronx

A flood of new schools will open to take the place of schools that are in the process of phasing out. In District 8, the Mott Hall Community School and the Soundview Academy will join several middle schools that have replaced IS 192 and IS 174, which will close in June.

In District 9, the Family School and the Sheridan Academy for Young Leaders will take over the PS 90 school zone. Families within the zone will also have the option of enrolling their child in the Grant Avenue Elementary School. Grant Avenue and the Science and Technology Academy, a new middle school, will both open at IS 166, which is slated to close by 2011.

In District 12, the Urban Scholars Community School will replace CS 198, while in Districts 10, IS 399 will be replaced by two new middle schools: the Creston Academy and the East Fordham Academy for the Arts. District 11 will welcome three schools to offer students alternatives to their zoned middle school: Baychester Academy, Pelham Academy, and CASA Middle School, an extension of the established CASA elementary school.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn will open a mix of ‘replacement’ schools and brand-new schools, including one of the new citywide gifted and talented schools. Three of Brooklyn’s new schools will open in newly-constructed buildings: the Brooklyn School of Inquiry and the Academy of Talented Scholars will share one building, while the Science and Medicine Middle School will share its building with a new transfer school. In District 15, the Red Hook Neighborhood School will replace the early grades of PS 27, a K-12 school that is phasing out, and in District 19, East New York Elementary and East New York Middle School will replace PS 72.

Manhattan

Downtown Manhattan parents in District 2 will gain two new highly-anticipated elementary schools, the Battery Park City School and the Spruce Street School, as well as Quest to Learn, an innovative, technology-based 6-12 school. Uptown parents will gain three new middle schools: West Prep Academy in District 3, Global Technology Prep in District 4, and New Tech in District 5.

Queens

The new schools will be concentrated on the Rockaway Peninsula. The Waterside Children’s Studio School, an arts-based elementary school, and the Waterside School for Leadership, a middle school, will replace PS 225, which will begin to phase out in June. Village Academy will open at MS 53 to give students a second zoned option.

Staten Island

Staten Island will get its first K-8 school when The Staten Island School for Civic Leadership opens in the Graniteville neighborhood.

We’ll keep posting information about the new schools as we learn it. Stay tuned to the InsideScoop.

Families who covet seats at lower Manhattan’s prize elementary schools PS 234 and PS 89 are legion — and, if the Times’ trend story is any harbinger, their number will climb in the coming kindergarten seasons.

Following DOE admissions protocol, both schools turn to lotteries if their applications for kindergarten enrollment exceed available seats. Inevitably, that means that some families, even those who live very close to the schools, risk being shut out and sending their youngsters elsewhere. This fall, local kids will go to the new schools that will incubate at Tweed, PS/IS 276 and the Spruce Street School. (The oft-fraught Ross Global Academy, which has been housed at Tweed, will move to new quarters at 420 East 12th St.) But, DOE reps say, Tribeca locals have another shot at 234 and 89, according to the Downtown Express – which reports that the DOE will grant families who live “near” the schools entry in first grade, in 2010, but never exactly defines what “near” actually means.

For parents curious about the new neighborhood schools, check out Principal Terry Ruyter’s PS/IS 276 blog and Principal Nancy Harris’ Spruce Street blog. If you want your info in person in addition to online, two open houses are scheduled for this week: February 25 from 5 pm to 7 pm at Tweed (52 Chambers Street) and February 26, 6:30 pm to 8 pm, at Manhattan Youth Downtown Community Center, 120 Warren Street.

A few days ago, we weren’t alone in cheering the DOE for its plan to stream live video of the Obama inauguration to the city’s schools. Yesterday, though, hundreds of students at a number of schools, including elementary and middle schools in Brooklyn and Queens, didn’t get to see the 44th President take the Oath of Office. One school relied on the kindness of neighbors, while another switched to a small radio feed — not quite up to the challenge of an auditorium filled with excited middle-schoolers.

We know the video worked in many schools, but wonder if your child was able to view the Inauguration at school. If not, did you recap the events of the day at home? And what did your child’s school do instead of watch? We’re sure someone seized the moment for something creative and energetic.

While thousands of fifth graders will hand in their middle school applications on Friday, approximately 2,000 sixth graders will sit for the Hunter High School admissions exam. A recent Times article showed how seriously some of those students have been preparing for the exam: taking up coffee, reading the dictionary, and spending weekends and holidays at costly Asian-inspired test-prep boot camps. Meanwhile, another section of the venerable newspaper urges parents of 5 year-olds who are sitting for gifted and talented testing to “stay sane.” Sage advise but, as Liz Belkin wrote in a blog entry about the Obama girls first day at a new school, many (otherwise sane) parents still find it hard to drop their children off and then go home, wait, and hope for the best.

Last Thursday in District 3, the Department of Education and parents attempted haltingly to hold a conversation about what schools should replace the closing MS44 and PS241. I say “attempted” because parents mostly wanted to vent —about how small gains at those schools were not recognized, and about the challenges the schools faced, like the 35% population of PS 241 students who were both special needs kids and English Language Learners, mostly recent immigrants from Africa. DOE officials John White and Martine Guerrier wanted parents to limit their comments to what they valued about the old schools and what they hoped to see in a new school.

Regarding MS44, speakers emphasized a desire for diversity: the new school should be general ed, serving students from the entire academic spectrum. In fact, several parents expressed the opinion that education in the district overall might improve if all middle schools in the district took a portion of the lowest performing students.

For most of the meeting DOE officials declined to share their own vision of possible schools to replace PS241 and MS44, but by the end of the night, Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy head Martine Guerrier promised to bring to the next meeting a couple of examples of the kinds of schools that DOE thinks might fit in the community, as a basis for discussion.

I met the mother of a second grader at PS241 who was wondering how to get her daughter the best possible education in the face of a closing school. Who did she have to know? What tricks or special favors could be wrangled on her behalf?

Her daughter got top grades on her tests, the mom told me. Sounds like she would be an asset to any school, I said. You don’t need to ask for favors–let the schools you want her to attend know that you have a great student and your family wants to be part of their school community. No need to ask for favors—they should be honored to take her in.

The mom’s face lit up like the Christmas star. “No one ever told me such a positive way of looking at my goals,” she said. With an attitude like that and the will to be her child’s advocate, she was already more than halfway there.

The good news, from the DOE and the State, is that crime in the city’s schools is on the wane: Of 25 city schools described as persistently dangerous by the State last year, 15 were removed from the list in light of improved safety and lower crime. The downside is that 11 city schools remain on the danger list. New York City also added more schools (six) to the state’s list than any other area of the state.

In counterpoint, Comptroller William Thomson asserts that as many as one in five violent/criminal/safety incidents that occur in schools go improperly or incompletely reported. City leaders hope that a proposed amendment to the City Charter will improve school security by directing complaints of police misconduct to the Civilian Complaint Review Board (not the current norm) and requiring regular reporting on school violence to the DOE and NYPD.

In an article today, the Post documents a number of District 75 schools on the state’s list — D 75 schools enroll special need students with the most acute needs. Reports of persistent violence in D 75 schools, where staff ratios are far smaller than mainstream schools, raise difficult questions on all sides. And an AP story from am New York sets New York’s improvements against a national canvas, noting without irony that the other 49 states document a total of 21 persistently dangerous schools compared to New York State’s 19 (although reporting criteria vary from state to state).

Notably, despite pop-media visions of metal-detectors and box-cutter-wielding teens, “persistently dangerous” schools include elementary and middle schools, too. Under the provisions of NCLB, parents can request safety transfers for students enrolled at “dangerous” schools. But time is short before the start of school; those interested in seeking transfers should contact their school this week to explore the process.

District 2, which encompasses some of Manhattan’s prime development turf, has chronically overcrowded elementary schools. Middle schools, often housed on the top floors of primary schools, add to the population pressure.

In a long letter to the Community Education Council, the DOE proposed short- and long-term responses to grade-school crowding — including moving fifth-graders at jammed schools to less-populous schools two miles uptown, strictly limiting zoning variances, shifting classes to underused space at local middle and elementary schools, as well as plans to add thousands of new school seats and (possible) zoning changes. Safe to say, the issue won’t be resolved in the next month, before school begins. For schools like PS 234, which is at 150% utilization, or PS 59, at 192%, close quarters doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Local parents and school advocates want the DOE to consider another short-term option not outlined in their D 2 ‘blueprint,’ which focuses on grade school crowding. A state-owned building at 75 Morton St., in the thick of the overcrowded zone, is on the auction block. Parents, teachers, principals, and local pols want the DOE to acquire the building for a new public middle school. (It’s fully ADA accessible, to boot.)

Today at 5:30pm, parents and activists will rally in front of 75 Morton. We hope the DOE’s School Construction Authority and Office of Portfolio Development are paying attention.

Do-gooders are building 11 new playgrounds at Bronx elementary schools this summer, but parents of leaf-picking toddlers just might face summonses, like one unlucky mother in Chelsea. Five public school students, who grew up playing on city fields, were picked in the Major League Baseball draft and face a tough choice — go pro or go to college — while students at the Bronx Early College Academy, who’d hoped to earn college credits in high school, now learn that there may not be space for their high school at all come fall.The DOE and NYPD both report that crime is down in city schools, but a college-bound recent graduate was tragically shot and killed on the street in Rockaway yesterday. Brooklyn teens who gave their teachers a laxative-laced cake had their charges reduced while truly disturbing charges were filed against a teacher accused of abusing a disabled student.

Just when public hearings were scheduled on mayoral control of the schools, there is a bid for two new unions – one for public school parents and one for the students. Hard questions should be raised about bad record-keeping at the DOE and the ask-questions-later mentality of ACS workers. Outraged New Jerseyans questioned a superintendents’ golden retirement parachute, and some worry that questions about potential score inflation of New York standardized tests may never be answered.

Quiet week at Tweed and City Hall? Time for Times stories about higher education, like this one, this one, this one, this one, this one and this one. The Sun’s Elizabeth Green wrote about a well-regarded anonymous education blogger and the DOE’s “truth squad,” which monitors education blogs for net-speed inaccuracies.

Skewing to the summering-away crowd, the Times counsels parents not to worry if teens complain about the isolation of the family summer house — once the kids go to college, they’ll begin to enjoy the second home again. (Whew!) And in town, it seems that more parents are building mini-teen centers in their homes to keep their kids off the streets (and mini would be the operative word for most NYC apartments). But kids who created their own suburban summer fun are wrangling with lawyers instead of shagging wiffle balls. One, two, three strikes and we’re out! Have a great weekend.

If you can’t make the rally this afternoon at City Hall (and even if you plan to attend), have a look at this parent-organized petition, asking the DOE to reconsider centralized Kindergarten admissions.

Parents of preschoolers, this policy has the potential to directly affect your family’s admissions experience.

Even if your kids are past K, consider adding your name. No one should have to go through the confusion that characterized this year’s process.

With the Obama/McCain showdown claiming more above-the-fold newspaper space and primetime television minutes each week, I have been considering the delicate relationship between teachers’ personal politics, and their educational obligations to their students. Children have no qualms about asking blunt questions, including “who did you vote for in the last election?” which I was often asked when I taught sixth and seventh grade social studies at IS 143 in Washington Heights.

My students really wanted to know what I believed. Most of them were immigrants or first-generation Americans, and they were learning about democracy and politics for the first time in my class. They struggled in particular to understand modern political parties, and they wanted to know what the adults they looked up to believed, so that they could begin to build their own political opinions.But is it fair for teachers to share their personal political views with students or is it a teacher’s job to present the all of the ideas and arguments and teach the students the skills they need to form their own opinions? According the chancellor’s regulations, it is forbidden: all DOE employees “shall maintain a posture of neutrality with respect to all candidates,” while on the job, but in reality, this is not always followed. And remember what happened when a Bronx high school teacher and his students made a video for the Obama campaign this fall?Stanley Fish, a distinguished professor who has worked at several prominent universities, would also argue against bringing politics into the classroom. Fish writes in his New York Times blog that it is not only possible but critical that teachers don’t share their personal political opinions with their students. Gray Lady readers, particularly those who are also professors, have responded in force, igniting a vigorous debate that Fish has now responded to twice (I have even noticed some of my own professors from college chiming in).

But the relationship between politics and teaching is not just confined to higher-education. The commentators who complain that kids don’t know enough, or care enough, about the democratic process are usually quick to blame elementary, middle and high school teachers. If teachers are passionate about politics, should they share that with their students? I am inclined to side with Professor Fish and argue that politics need to be taught but not partisan ideas. In this presidential election year, do you think that teachers’ political opinions should be shared or silenced while they are at school?

Parents citywide should have g+t kindergarten and first grade placement results no later than today, according to the DOE, which used couriers to hand-deliver letters across all five boros — even in Staten Island, according to one commenter.

Apparently, the fallout from pre-K had big bureaucratic repercussions: “We identified issues that caused confusion with some pre-Kindergarten placements, so we ran additional checks on the gifted and talented placements — especially the placements for siblings,” said DOE press spokesman Andy Jacob.

The extra efforts were made to “ensure that parents receive clear and accurate information,” according to Jacob. “We delivered the letters via courier because we wanted parents to get the letters when they expected them, and with sufficient time to accept or decline their offers.” According to Elizabeth Green in the Sun, deliveries cost about $5 per envelope — plenty pricey, but less than overnight-mail fees. (Parents can also expect duplicate letters via conventional post.)

Timing is crucial for schools as well: As these last days of school unfold, schools that will receive new students need to know who’s coming, in order to plan their mix of classes.

If you expect a placement letter and don’t have one by the end of the day today, telephone OSEPO’s elementary placement office, at 212 374-4948. They’re following up on undeliverables, which they estimate to be less than 1% of letters, but a quick hello can’t hurt. (And if you have a chance, drop us a note, too - curious to see how many deliveries found their mark, and how many went awry.)

We’ve been hearing today from lots of parents who haven’t yet had word on their child’s g+t kindergarten and first-grade placement. The official word from the DOE is “this week” — and as it’s ‘only’ Wednesday, more waiting’s in order. If we learn more about when news was mailed, we’ll let you know — but our bet is that the folks at OSEPO are plenty eager to get the news out. If you’ve gotten anything in the afternoon mail, let us know.

For families looking for seats in upper-elementary g+t programs, the application deadline is June 26th, with placements announced in mid-August. Details are also here on the DOE site, but go into the process with your eyes wide open: Comparatively few spots open up for upper-grade students, and competition can be fierce.

Still waiting for news on District 1, District 3, and middle-school snafus in District 15 and elsewhere. Hope for something of substance before too long…

Delays, confusion and misinformation have marked the middle school choice process this year, and it is simply unacceptable. This is a perfect example of the Department of Education putting children last. Principals and guidance counselors in the elementary and middle schools have tried to be patient and reassuring and worked hard to get answers that either keep changing — or apparently do not exist.

This year was confusing from start to finish. We couldn’t schedule tours in the fall, then — suddenly — we could! Parents who got the information somehow signed up, others found themselves shut out, only to have tours open again in December in January.

The deadlines for notification kept changing as well, leaving kids and parents on edge for way too long. Last week, in one Brooklyn school where the kids were becoming unbearably antsy, the school just typed up their own letter from the list they got from the DOE and handed them out in class — not the best strategy for kids who got disappointing news.

Imagine telling your 10 or 11-year-old child, who for months has been waiting to hear from one of the five carefully chosen middle schools they selected after endless touring, that they did not get into ANY of them.

That has happened to several families I know in Manhattan, and it’s an issue in Brooklyn as well, with children being assigned to middle schools that they did not apply to — or left without a middle school altogether, and directed to a second admissions round.

Are these kids with troubled records or academic difficulties? ABSOLUTELY NOT. In the cases I’m aware of, these are great kids, with solid test scores and the kinds of families who organize special events and field trips, volunteer endlessly and make it clear in everything they say and do that they support public education in New York City.

There are no pat answers or explanations either, because no one knows with much certainty how decisions were made, especially for the highly valued ones that are overwhelmed with applications.

It is not okay to simply accept that in any choice-based process, some children will get left out. That is not an outcome that we must simply live with. It’s too early to say how the appeals process will work in these cases, but in the meantime kids and families are suffering unecessary anxiety and pain.

It is not okay to promise answers by early May, and deliver them six weeks later with no explanation at all. If Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s idea was to equalize the process, where is he now with the explanation, the apology and a plan to fix the problems?

The fault lies in the idea that the DOE decided at some point to “centralize,” both pre-k and middle school choice this year, perhaps to make life easier for administrators. That’s the only explanation I’ve seen in the New York Times last week.

The New York Daily News has also tried to get answers: The explanation? First time the DOE had coordinated the processes in different districts.

That’s not good enough. And it simply doesn’t resonate with kids and families who are spending this month trying to get answers — and trying to reassure their children that indeed, everything will work out, when they really can’t say those words with much confidence.

Two years ago when my older son went through middle school choice and the district was in charge, the tours ran on time, notification came by April and questions asked were answered.

Let’s get some answers now.

Last week, I took advantage of the elementary school half day to sit down with Jake G., a 2nd grader and member of the Insideschools family. Jake leveled with me on what it’s like to go to Lower Lab, why having a computer means more responsibility for him, and how parents can keep their 7 year olds happy at the end of a long school day.

Q. What’s your typical day like? What time do you get up?
A. I would need to get up at 7:30 a.m. to get to school, but I usually get up at about 6:20 so I can hang out with my dad, who leaves at 7. When I get to school, we go to the auditorium. Sometimes there will be an announcement. Then we get picked up by our teachers, and we start off with a morning meeting.

Q. Do you have a class news broadcast?
A: We do have a class newspaper. It comes out every six weeks. Last time I was going to do a jokes column. This time I am doing a math corner. The math problem is easy, but the idea is hard, so it takes a long time to figure out that it’s easy.

Q. What’s your favorite thing about your school?
A. My school’s a pretty good school. The only thing it has to work on is actually getting good stuff to bring the two schools together [Ed. note: Lower Lab and PS 198 share a building] … They have lots of ideas, but a lot of them aren’t that good. It might be a little hard — the cafeteria might not be big enough — but we could have lunch together or recess together. That’s what I would change. I do have a couple of friends who go to PS 198, from my karate class.

Q. What’s your favorite subject?
A. My favorite type of book would probably be fiction. It’s a little bit hard for me to get new books, so I read the same books over and over. And there’s a graphic novel series I like, called “Bone.” And I like Mad Libs.

Q. What do you do at recess?
A. I usually play a made-up game, but I also like kickball. I’m a pretty good pitcher.

Q. How much time do you spend on homework?
A. I usually have three pieces of homework, so it takes me maybe 30-45 minutes. I also have a hamster to take care of, named Sparky. And having my own computer is actually a responsibility too. I like to play Webkinz but I only use it for people I know, like kids in my class.

Q. What are you looking forward to in 3rd grade?
A. Learning how to write in script. I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen in 3rd grade, but I’m not sure. But a lot of people use script.

Q. What advice to you have for kids who are nervous about going to 2nd grade?
A. A lot of times kids get hungry after school. Kindergarteners and 1st graders get a snack, but not in 2nd grade. The good news is that my dad always gets me a snack, usually a Clif Bar. My favorite food is sushi.

In the last few years, the city’s schools have gotten better about identifying overweight students and suggesting more activity for them, but physical education still gets short shrift at most schools, according to the Gotham Gazette. The DOE’s Office of Fitness and Physical Education implemented a fitness test, called the FitnessGRAM, to give students and their parents more information about their fitness level. But because of the pressure to focus on tested subjects and space and staffing constraints, most elementary schools continue to offer far less than the state-mandated 120 minutes per week of physical activity, instead suggesting to parents ways to help their kids be active and eat healthfully at home. I wonder how many families are able to respond to the FitnessGRAM results the way the DOE expects them to. And even if every parent of an overweight child changes his or her habits because of the test results, should we let schools pass off state-required health and fitness instruction to students’ homes?

Less than a year after struggling to land a location, Khalil Gibran International Academy could become a vagabond again.

The DOE is hoping to move it to PS 287 in Fort Greene for the fall, even though last summer DOE officials said the Dean Street building where it’s currently housed would be able to handle a second year of growth. But parents at PS 287 say they don’t want Khalil Gibran in the building. The PTA president told the press that the elementary school parents don’t want older kids sharing the space.

What they — and the reporters who have covered this so far — haven’t mentioned is that for the last four years there has been a high school in the PS 287 building. The Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice is moving to a new building in downtown Brooklyn this fall, but since its inception has been located at PS 287. It’s possible that the space-sharing has caused problems. If that’s the case, we should know. And if it’s not the case, parents at PS 287, which according to the DOE is operating at only 42 percent capacity, should come up with a better line for why they don’t want to share their space with a school that clearly needs all the help it can get.

A 5th-grade boy raised his hand on our last middle school tour and posed a question that took everyone aback. It reminded grown-ups in the room what it must feel like to be 10 or 11 years old, contemplating your educational future.

“Is it easy to make friends at this middle school?’’ the boy wondered.

Kelly McGuire, the energetic principal of Greenwich Village Middle School had already distributed a glossy brochure, articulated his educational philosophy and answered predictable questions about class sizes and whether 6th graders can go out to lunch.

He’d spoken about literacy and math scores. He’d described a small, caring and nurturing community with a commitment to social justice and a “really rigorous approach to academics.”

(Every school we’ve toured has a “really rigorous approach.”)

The 8th-grade students had answered questions about where they want to go to high school and how much homework they have. They complained about what they least like about their school – all those stairs they must climb to get to it

(Every middle school we’ve toured has also been on the top floor of an old building with no elevator.)

No one really knew how to answer the little boy’s question about making friends, although it laid bare a top priority of 5th graders as they prepare to rank their top five middle choices by Feb. 6.

Hint: It’s not a “content-rich program,” an “integrated theme-based curriculum,’’ a “peer mediation/conflict resolution program,” or “collaborative team teaching,’’ to mention a few of the phrases we’ve heard on tours.

For 5th graders, middle school means splitting up from classmates they’ve known for years and finding themselves in an unfamiliar environment.

How, they wonder, will they make new friends?

No principal, parent or student can answer that question for them. No tour guide has the answer.

I’m grateful we have a choice of middle schools, but I strongly wish that 6th graders could remain one more year in their elementary school – the old K-6 configuration that I grew up with and one that is being considered again, as are pre-K-8 schools, like the new one being proposed for Battery Park City. I love the idea.

I’m not sure what is gained by hurtling them into the adolescent world of cell phones, instant messaging, traveling alone and school dances where grinding (if you don’t know what it is, ask any middle schooler) rules. They will face those social pressures far sooner than many parents — and I suspect educators — would like.

My 5th-grade son looked weary but relieved after our last tour, which was probably number 7 or 8 — we slept through one and lost count. Mostly, he wants to go to school with his best buddy or least some of the classmates he’s known since kindergarten. And he’d like to get back to enjoying the rest of elementary school.

That, he told me, was what he was thinking about when the little boy asked his heartfelt question about making friends.

Last night I went to the first of five public hearings held by the DOE about the proposed new system for handling pre-K and kindergarten admission. I was surprised that there were no more than about three dozen parents there but the DOE did just announce the policy at the end of last week.

Read Insideschools’ overview for background on the proposal. I learned many more details last night:

• If the proposal goes through (and the “if” here really means “when”), all pre-K registration activities thus far this year will have been rendered moot. Keep going to open houses, but if principals promise you a slot or ask for your commitment to their school, remember that it probably won’t matter. And you’ll have to pick up and return a pre-K application, even if you think you’ve already done that.

• A large part of completing the application will be trying to figure out your likelihood of admission to the schools you list. If your zoned school has a popular pre-K program, you’ll probably want to list it first, because if you list it second, all the seats could be taken by other zoned children before you’re even considered. As Marty Barr of OSEPO said last night, it would make sense to try to get into a program outside of your zone only when the program you want is large and doesn’t usually have that many people applying which does not describe the most desirable programs, of course.

• Kids with IEPs will continue to be placed by the Committee on Preschool Special Education their parents won’t have to fill out an application.

• Within each priority level, siblings will receive preference for admission. So after all the zoned children who rank a pre-K program first are admitted, the sibling of a child enrolled in that school from outside the zone would get priority over other out-of-zone students for admission.

• The DOE says that pre-K programs at community-based organizations will follow the same calendar, so if you want a back-up plan should you not get into any public school pre-K program, you will want to apply to your top-choice CBO programs in March as well.

• Everyone in pre-K this fall and afterward will have to reapply for kindergarten, including families in their zoned school who want to stay there. A child who gets into an out-of-zone or unzoned school for pre-K will have no assurance or even priority to be allowed to stay there for kindergarten.

• The DOE has no idea how it will deal with seats that open up due to children leaving the city, enrolling in CBO-run pre-K programs, or choosing private schools. Barr said OSEPO has considered a second round of applications (at this, parents last night booed) or assigning children on an “over-the-counter” basis.

• The proposal has no built-in appeals process, but OSEPO Director Liz Sciabarra seemed open to adding one. In 2009, if you are assigned to a school for kindergarten that doesn’t work for your family, you can apply to transfer. Barr and Sciabarra said the transfer process will remain the same.

The new process may wind up being simpler and fairer, as the DOE says it will be, but it certainly does change the game this year for many families entering the system. What should be the major takeaways for parents? First, schools that have accepted kids on an individual basis will not be able to do so any more; principals will no longer have any discretion to issue variances. In addition, the process is heavily weighted toward keeping kids in their zoned schools. The way to give yourself the best chance of getting into your first-choice pre-K program and kindergarten in 2009 is to move into that school’s zone.

What’s your take on this proposal? Let Insideschools know in the comments, and then let the DOE know by emailing ES_Enrollment@schools.nyc.gov. You can also attend one of the three remaining public hearings; see our calendar for details on dates and locations.

Would you wait in the cold at 4:30 a.m. to sign up for more classes with your elementary school science teacher? That’s what parents from PS 261 in Brooklyn did this past week when Carmelo Piazza, known in the neighborhood as “Carmelo the Science Fellow,” opened registration for the 8-week summer program he runs. The New York Times reports that parents started lining up around 4:30 a.m., and the entire summer session was full less than 3 hours after registration opened at 9 a.m. Piazza sounds indefatigable (and possibly insane), teaching a full schedule, running after-school classes at his neighborhood science joint, and entertaining at weekend birthday parties. The city needs more teachers like him.

We all know that overzealous security guards can be a problem in schools, but I didn’t think the issue extended to kindergartens. Apparently it does. When a 5 year old at PS 81 in Queens had a tantrum which presumably had something to do with him being 5 years old a security guard handcuffed him and called an ambulance to take him to a local psych ward, the Daily News reports today. Of course, there may be more to this story than the Daily News is saying, but the school and the DOE aren’t disputing what happened, and now a kid feels unwelcome at his neighborhood public school. This story is just one more reminder that the city’s schools need personnel who are trained to work with children, not criminals.

When choosing a middle school, what happens after hours is critical in a city where space is scarce and fields are threatened.

Parents mulling middle school options spend a great deal of time comparing math and science programs, class size and school philosophies. They also can’t help noticing the wide disparity of sports and after-school programs and activities

Extras like robotics and rock bands can be big factors for working parents. Who wouldn’t prefer having their kids in fun, structured activities in school instead of hanging out in city parks, unsupervised?

Kids care a lot about these offerings as well. My 5th-grade son is absolutely swayed by the promise of track, soccer and swim teams.

After school sports are even more critical at a time when the few athletic fields available to New York City kids are threatened by politics - as at Randall’s Island - or by development, as at Pier 40, where a huge rally is planned this Sunday at noon to save the fields from development.

So far, no middle school we’ve toured can compete with the offerings at M.A.T. in Chinatown, detailed in a great piece last week in the Downtown Express. The promise of the long-awaited community center that will be available free for all students at IS 289 will also be welcome.

But only M.A.T. offers a climbing wall (a great metaphor for middle schoolers, who literally climb them anyway) along with a surfing club and a tremendous track and field program. John De Matteo, the school’s ambitious athletic director, is building a really impressive program where 65 percent of all students participate in a sport.

To his credit, De Matteo has already met with the principal of Tompkins Square Middle School to explain how M.A.T. can support 16 sports and 38 teams. He plans to meet with other middle school principals to talk about how they can model their programs after M.A.T. as well.

De Matteo is happy to share his insights because he is so convinced that it makes a huge difference in the lives of middle schoolers.

“I believe that being on a structured sports team which teaches children how to work with their teammates, build sportsmanship, build community and character and motivate to improve grades will be one of the most important opportunities for our children to have,” he says.

Any advice M.A.T. can offer middle school principals will be a positive step for all New York City public schools. Space, money and scheduling issues all interfere with the creation of after school programs. Just last week, hundreds of kids and parents crowded into PS 3 in the West Village, pointing out the critical need for more schools in Chelsea and the Village. Kids wondered why luxury condos are cropping up everywhere when schools are not.

There are not enough good public schools in the city. We also need fields, after school programs and sports. Parents are going to have to make a lot of noise to make sure we get them.

In the meantime, let’s offer support and encouragement to the educators and visionaries who are creating, pushing and sharing programs that mean so much to our kids.

Looks like parents at PS 40 and PS 116 in Manhattan are taking the advice of Robert Pondiscio and the legions of parents who would do the same thing if they could find enough allies and boycotting some of the testing mandated this year by the DOE. The parents are upset that their kids were selected to take “field tests” to help testmakers devise future exams, in addition to having to take the real state tests in math and ELA and diagnostic tests to generate progress report data.

I don’t think [the field test is] going to be a strain on any particular child, but it replaces classroom teaching, and it is a waste of everybody time, PS 40 parent told the Times. But according to Louise at Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, individual kids are feeling the strain of one test after another. Louise, who says she’s sick of testing, wrote yesterday that her 5th-grade daughter became distressed last week that the following day she would have to take “what seemed a sudden standardized math test that her teacher told me had something to do with appraising teacher performance.” Louise asks, as did the Manhattan parents boycotting the tests, “Why put a kid through this kind of anxiety?” Perhaps Louise should spearhead a boycott at PS 321. I’m sure she’d have no trouble finding followers.

More details are emerging on the mayor’s new plan to “end social promotion” in 8th grade. According to the New York Times, the 8th grade rules are “stricter” than those already in place in grades 3, 5, and 7 because students will have to pass all of their core subjects as well as score a 2 or higher on state tests. Last year, the Times reports, about a quarter of 8th graders failed to meet these standards.

No one’s suggesting that a quarter of 8th graders will really have to stay in middle school, but as I noted yesterday, summer schools are sure to expand in 2009, when the first set of kids affected by the new policy finishes 8th grade. The Daily News notes that Chancellor Klein plans to head off “mass flunkings” by putting in place stronger intervention strategies earlier in middle school but without new funds to support those strategies, it’s not clear how schools with lots of struggling students will be able to offer intensive support to their weakest students and at the same time scale up their advanced offerings, as a policy announced last summer is requiring them to do.

Advocates for Children Director Kim Sweet told the Daily News, “We’re very concerned that kids are being stuck in the eighth grade who can’t meet the requirements to graduate currently and are already over-age and unable to get into high school.” The new policy could exacerbate that problem.

Fortunately, the Times has some small consolation for advocates and over-age kids, noting, “Officials said it was unlikely that eighth graders who had already been held back twice would be retained a third time.”

It’s been a couple of years since the mayor added another grade to the list of those in which a failing grade on either state test requires a child to go through the holdover process, but in his “State of the City” address today, Mayor Bloomberg announced that next year, 8th grade will join grades 3, 5, and 7 on that list.

The details have yet to be announced — that must be what the chancellor’s 3 p.m. press briefing is for — but we can expect that 8th grade teachers and middle school principals can plan to spend time this spring reviewing the work of their 1-scoring students, as the automatic review process requires. And this new policy will be sure to cause problems for high schools and summer school planners, who will have to update their rolls based on the results of 8th graders’ test scores.

The mayor also noted that the city is planning to step up vocational offerings in the public schools. A task force has been convened to supervise the 2009 launch of programs that will begin in high schools and continue in local colleges. And he also said that this fall, families will be able to log in to the test score monitoring system that principals and teachers already use. Hopefully it’s less confusing than the progress reports, which befuddled parents and school officials alike.

The mayor had lots to say about things other than education. You should read the whole address and find out what else he has planned for New Yorkers.

If you’re still looking for a school for the fall, we’ve heard of a couple of new schools that are still trying to fill openings. The Urban Assembly School for Criminal Justice, an all-girls school in Brooklyn, has 6th grade seats, and Cornerstone Academy, located in a new building near Co-op City in the Bronx, has seats in multiple grades; it’s opening with pre-kindergarten through 5th grade and is taking applications until Friday. Contact those schools if you’re interested. You might also want to contact other elementary and middle schools opening this fall to see if they still have seats.

Yesterday, the Times profiled the debate among parents over the popular children’s series Junie B. Jones. Some parents like the 27-book series about a spunky little girl because their reading-resistant kids do, but others ban the books in their homes because the main character uses incorrect grammar. The Times bills this debate as a pedagogical difference, a “pint-size version of the lingering education battle between advocates of phonics, who believe children should be taught proper spelling and grammar from the outset, and those who favor whole language, a literacy method that accepts misspellings and other errors as long as children are engaged in reading and writing.”

But I think the Times might be looking at the wrong culture clash. Instead, I see the books’ publisher’s response to a complaining parent as neatly summing up the debate; Random House said that “books for children don’t always have to be educational to be valuable.”

At schools I’ve visited, I’ve met struggling readers who love Junie B. — they may even identify with her own language struggles, although as scholars point out, her “mistakes” actually correct irregularities in English. But they might just enjoy reading a book that’s fun. Kids spend a great deal of time on cut-and-dry, grammatically correct stories that resemble those they’ll see on standardized tests, and the high stakes of that literary form can’t do much to facilitate a love for reading. Kids deserve to cut loose every once in a while, as adults do, with some light reading. And with the rise of what teacher Barbara Feinberg calls “problem literature” — books about kids confronting very adult misfortunes — there’s value in just reminding kids that stories can make them laugh.

In the article, a sensible parent says she likes reading the books with her son, who enjoys them. “Sure, maybe Junie B. isn’t everyone’s cup of tea,” she said. “But when she does things wrong or says things incorrectly, it provides an opportunity to talk about how things should be.” Like all children’s books, the Junie B. Jones books aren’t meant to stand in for good teachers. But if parents are going to join schools in sucking the fun out of learning, then the books might have to stand in for them.

Do you want to make sure that additional funds for New York City schools are being well spent? You can send a letter to the State Board of Regents telling them to require that the upcoming historic increase in education funding be used for the purposes it was intended, including small class size and full-day universal pre-kindergarten.

Two advocacy organizations have created an open letter to the Regents, which must be submitted by this Friday, June 22, before the Regents meet in Albany next week. The letter asks the Regents to put specific accountability requirements into state regulations.

Read more…

More than 100 schools are slated to lose their after school programs in the fall, the New York Times reports today. Statewide, 207 schools are being forced to cut their after school programs because the federal grant that funds them is running out. By the time schools were informed that they would not be able to renew the after school grants, it was too late for them to find other funding sources. In the city, 118 schools are looking at cutting their programs — these include IS 238 in Queens, PS 20 in the Bronx, and Lower East Side Preparatory High School, all of which the Times profiles. The Queens Tribune has some backstory on the timeline and blame game of the current funding crisis. We’re hoping it gets resolved and schools are able to sustain the after school programs they’ve developed — and we especially hope that other schools do not find themselves in the same position next year when their funding runs out.

For more information on this crisis and other after school news, check out the After School Corporation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and sustaining after school programs in New York.

There’s been some discussion on our forum about the city’s plan to lease most of the playing fields on Randall’s Island to private schools instead of making them available to East Harlem public schools. The deal seems unfair both because it deprives public schools of access to public parks for the next 20 years and because the city made the deal without seeking input from residents of the affected communities. Now, the Times reports that a group of East Harlem residents are suing the city over the deal — they’re seeking to have the deal canceled because they weren’t consulted before it was made. They’re being represented by Norman Siegel, the former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union who also led the unsuccessful cell phone ban lawsuit. No matter what happens with this lawsuit, we hope it reminds the city that New Yorkers notice when they are excluded from discussions about their neighborhoods, their children, and their rights.

Last week the Times ran a humorous piece about the books that schools assign as summer reading. The author, essayist Joe Queenan, thinks most books students are assigned are kitschy and insubstantial or ponderous and boring, and he’s skeptical that any of them help instill a love of reading in young people.

He writes:

Forty years after being pistol-whipped by Thomas Hardy, I am amazed that the summer reading list continues to exist. In a society that has dispensed with every other laudable cultural more, it bewilders me that students still allow adults to wreck their summer vacations by forcing them to feast on the passé cheekiness of “The Catcher in the Rye” or on mind-numbing kitsch like “The Alchemist.” I’m not saying it is necessarily a bad thing that schools require students to read books during the summer: culture, like vitamins, works best when imposed rather than selected. I am simply recording my amazement that in an age when urban high schools use weapons detectors to check for handguns, educators still make kids read “The Red Badge of Courage.”

Many high schools in the city require summer reading, and we’ve noticed mostly quality literature on reading lists. Unlike Queenan, we think kids can really benefit from reading “The Catcher in the Rye” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” (another object of his scorn). Of course, if kids don’t complete their assigned reading, it doesn’t really matter what is assigned.

What has been your family’s experience with summer reading? Have your kids had to do it? How much teeth-pulling did it take to get the pages read — or did the books sit around unopened all summer?