With all the attention focused on kindergarten overcrowding, it's important not to forget the middle school students who have yet to be matched with a high school they want to attend. It's time for the Department of Education to stop boasting about how many more students got their first choice and imagine for a few minutes what it must feel like to be graduating next month and assigned to a high school you don't want to go to -- or still be scrambling to appeal a placement.

This is not an outcome a city, where less than half of high schoolers earn a diploma on time, can find acceptable. And the Department of Education simply has to find a way to place students like those detailed in this week's Daily News story. Students like Ostap Paviliv, an honor student from Sheepshead Bay, or Max Hellerstein, a high scoring 8th-grader who got assigned to a fashion high school. What sense does that make? And what about Phoebe, middle-schooler from Manhattan who scored in the top 2 percent of all 7th-grade students and got exactly zero of her six first-round choices?

It's outrageous that high-achieving students who have worked hard and fully expect to graduate and go on to college are in this limbo. The DOE's response -- that only 9 percent of 8th-graders did not get a match -- is wholly inadequate. There needs to be a system in place that helps each and every one of these students find a proper placement.

Over the summer, some students with high school seats will move or perhaps choose parochial or private  schools instead.  High school seats will open at desirable, strong schools. Unmatched or mismatched students, who in some cases are near the top of their class, must be a DOE priority. It's wrong to leave them stranded. These are kids and parents who believe in public education.  This city cannot and should not fail them.