The City Council and Department of Education have launched a five-borough book drive for schools to heighten awareness and understanding in students about LGBT (lesbian,gay, bisexual and...

No graduation ceremony was held when my daughter’s class finished 1st grade, so I was not invited to give the commencement address. But if I had been the featured speaker, I would have said...

Nothing dulls the luster of my club's reading room quite like a spot of bad news. So it was no surprise that, upon spying the recent Times article about “The $1 million PTA,” and seeing my...

Dear Judy, My husband and I will be moving to Manhattan sometime this fall or winter (probably just after Christmas). Our oldest child will start kindergarten this fall. However, he was born in...

I'll be one of the speakers at a workshop at New York University, Tuesday, June 5, from 12 to 1:30 p.m. to help parents figure out their elementary school options. The event at the Kimmel...

New York’s Department of Education recently announced 24 city schools were given new names. About the same time, 5th-graders learned which middle school they were selected to attend. Combined, the...

With the permission of the chancellor, many New York City schools are hastily scheduling no classes on June 25 and 26, two of the final three days of the school year, choosing to convert unused...

Not only are the state tests confusing for the kids. Now teachers say they can't figure out how to score them. Long-time principals and teachers say they have never witnessed the level of...

It's spring break so why are so many kids showing up at school this week? Test prep, that's why! Schools have sidelined regular lessons and ramped up test prep this year as the stakes for improved...

Fed up with multiple errors on state exams (including loudmouthed pineapples), some parents are planning to boycott "field tests" next week that will be used to design future exams.  Students at...

New York State’s standardized math and English exams for 3rd, 4th and 5th grades are over, except for the scoring and the remaining four years of Pearson’s $32 million contract to provide tests....

It's going to be a Wild West waiting game for anxious prospective pre-kindergarten parents this year. Even though acceptance letters don't go out until June 11, one Brooklyn school has already...

A whopping 1,603 incoming kindergartners scored in the 99th percentile on this year's gifted and talented assessments. Out of 14,239 test-takers, 11 percent scored in the top one percent. You'd...

My family's turn to provide afternoon snacks for my daughter’s 1st-grade class comes up next week, and I'm anxiously awaiting the backlash. When you make dietary choices for 23 New York City kids,...

District 20 leaders are bracing for a flood of parents at Wednesday's Community Education Council meeting who want the city to exempt IS 187 Christa McAuliffe from next year's special education...

Gifted and talented results letters weresent to families last week, and since then our inbox has been full of G&T queries from parents of prospective kindergartners who must apply by April 20....

The good news for this year's gifted and talented kindergarten test-takers? More kids scored high enough to qualify for a citywide G&T program. The bad news? Eligible students have about a 1 in...

Parents have started receiving the results of the 2012 tests for entrance to elementary school gifted and talented programs.  Score reports were sent by email and regular mail on April 10,...

Parents of children who turn four in 2012 have a few more days to apply for public school pre-kindergarten programs for next September. The Education Department extended the application deadline...

April is National Poetry Month. It's also the month many New York elementary schools hold benefit auctions to raise money. Inspired by both events, I composed a poem (much in the tradition of...

State-mandated standardized tests for students in grades 3-8 begin on the Tuesday right after spring break. There are three days of reading (ELA) tests: April 17, 18 and 19 and three days of math...

Some parents at a top middle school are fighting to stop special education students from “taking seats” from students whose test scores may be higher. The parents at Brooklyn’s IS 187/Christa...

Kindergarten registration begins today and the early word is that some Manhattan and Brooklyn schools have waitlists for kindergarten, although they are somewhat shorter than last year. The...

Kindergarten registration begins March 26 after families learn this week where their children got accepted. Schools sent out notification letters via email and regular mail by March 23. While the...

"THAT'S IT!" It was the final straw, or rather, the final Skittle. I stood frozen in front of the principal's white board—it's the first thing you see when you arrive at my son's elementary...