At the NYC Student Union meeting today we discussed the somewhat obvious connection that education has with race, income and neighborhood. We talked about the way people are born onto education 'tracks' that are extremely difficult to change. We also found that the system works both ways.

Because I live in Park Slope and went to PS 321, I ended up at MS 51, Lab, and am now at LaGuardia. This succesion of good schools was expected of me-- and I was kept well informed of these good options, all the time. Then, there's the other side. Students who have never heard of specialized high schools because no one imagines that they would go there. And because they are not really prepared, they receive poor 7th grade test scores which then follow them and limit them, making it very difficult to get into these good schools.

We all know that living in a good neighborhood doesn't make me smarter than anyone else. But it does give me the resources I need to have the highest level of education possible. As a small, relatively uncredible all-student union, we realize that it's going to be close to impossible for us to do anything about this established norm. Instead, we're launching a project where we'll try to get into 7th grade classrooms around the city, especially in lower-income neighborhoods where expectations for students might be lower. We'll explain to students how to apply to high schools, make sure students know about all the high schools, and offer tutoring for the 7th grade standardized test. Hopefully we can take this small step toward equal acess to quality education. As NYSCU member Hasanur put it, "We can't get 1,000 kids to change their education paths. But if we can affect the lives of 10 students, we've made a difference."