Madness at Penn Alexander
Parents wait - and wonder - whether they will get into Penn Alexander. It's their local public school, but that's no guarantee of admission.
Madness at Penn Alexander
Miriam Hill
Sunday was a rough night for parents hoping to get their children into the Penn Alexander school. They had to sleep over to nab a limited number of kindergarden spots. The situation seems unfair, but it's hard not to see some positive in it: Parents want to live in the city and send their children to public schools, and they will tolerate a lot of discomfort to do it.
Shouldn't Philadelphia be able to harness that energy?
Here is my story on the wait at Penn Alexander.
A big part of the problem with Philadelphia public schools is they are much more concerned about fairness than they are about providing a quality education to students who want it.
Here this is one of their few decent schools and the overwhelming concern is whether their admission procedures are fair.
In the perverse world of public school administrators, it is unfair to remove a disruptive kid from a school, even when the disruption is violent and impedes classmates. So they have very few expulsions, and in fact try to prevent them at all costs, while violence explodes. They counter by spending tens of millions on security cameras and metal detectors. Then when they catch a violent predator, they do nothing to them.
Apparently you need a PHD in educational theory to become completely blind to common sense. That coddling anti-social students does not help those kids, but it does destroy the education environment for everyone else.
The most ridiculous is when public school advocates claim that private schools are only superior because they apply admission and/or behavioral standards. That people this stupid are responsible for educating children explains why the PSD is a joke.— samac
But only one topic has become a passion: the pleasures and challenges of raising a young child in the city.
Not too long after her son was born four years ago, she started hunting around for day care, which triggered her ongoing search for a good primary school. Public, private or charter? Stay in the city or move to the suburbs?
And then there are the more mundane questions, such as how many games can you play while sitting on a stoop?
Please join her in the conversation about raising children in Philadelphia and about making this city better for kids. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, but her only personal obsession is not football, but Bruce Springsteen. As he might have said, it’s hard to be a parent in the city.
You can also follow Miriam on Twitter here.
