Rock / Me \ Hard Place

My child has always gone to NYC public schools. Now that she's getting a little older, I'm seriously considering pulling her out of her zoned school and putting her in private school. I wasn't going to blog about this, but I figure I should in the interest of full disclosure, especially now that Arne Duncan has admitted that he wouldn't send his kids to urban public schools, either. In fact, he chose his neighborhood so that he wouldn't have to send his children to the DC public schools. Yet, you can bet your bottom dollar that Duncan will tout Rhee as the example for the nation to follow while he sends his own children to school in Arlington, VA.

I was really torturing myself over this issue, but if urban public schools aren't good enough for Arne Duncan's children, why should I send mine there?

Now, let me state what should be obvious. As a parent of a public school child for many years, I salute the job the teachers and school have done, especially given Klein's whacked out curriculum, if you can call it that. My child's education has been superlative, primarily because of excellent teachers and (pardon me while I pat my back) caring parents. But as my child gets older, I have several concerns about letting her continue in public school:

• Class size: Her class size has grown all throughout her years and will mushroom next year.
• Lack of Discipline: I hear about what some of the kids in her school get away with, and that's just what she's willing to tell me about. As a teacher, I see worse every day, and I work in what would be considered a very good school.
• Non-stop Test Prep: I want my child to be able to do more than answer increasingly easy questions with a #2 pencil. She is a top reader but she often gets grouped with slower kids and I am tired of it.

Now that I've been in the system a while and am making decent money, I've explored my options, and I found a great private school that I can afford. I hate to do it, but I feel like I have no choice. This scares me because, in truth, my choices are fairly good. Most parents in NYC have no choice at all but to send their kids to their zoned schools.

Don't get me wrong--I am NOT in favor of so-called 'school choice'. I am in favor of fixing every single public school--every single damn one--so that no parent has to be concerned about where his or her kids go to school. Why should anyone, even Arne Duncan, lose a moment's sleep over this?