Injecting a dose of reality into college readiness dialogue in Washington Heights
Well, so this is scary:
College readiness was the subject of a City Council hearing last month that focused on the persistent disjuncture between what city high schools require for graduation and what the City University of New York expects from new students.
That’s nuts. And then the saddest part is that everyone is launching all these initiatives to get parents involved in college readiness as if they’re the source of the problem. Meanwhile reality is that scrambling to deal with the day-to-day problems in the school system makes long-term planning for their kids’ education that much harder.
Dionicio Rodriguez, a parent who is applying to kindergarten for his daughter this year, said he came to the meeting when he heard about it from a friend because he believes parents should start informing themselves about the path to college as early as possible. But he is also worried that the school choice options in District 6, his district, would be subpar, so he has applied to a dozen charter schools with kindergarten admissions.
“I want my daughter to get the best in her future, and a good school is the way to be successful in college,” he told me. “The school she is supposed to go to, if you go online the percentages on tests are low, so I don’t want her to go to that school. I want the best for her.”
I’m student teaching in District 6 right now, and am witnessing firsthand the anxiety and tough choices parents have because of school options in the area being so limited. Sometimes, in some neighborhoods, the whole game seems rigged.
