Kindergarteners on the move

"San Francisco Schools: Parents look afield for assignments" by Jill Tucker Saturday, March 19, 2011 in the San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/19/MNE91IDSUH.DTL&type=education

This story is about the kindergarten school assignments given to student in the San Francisco Bay area school districts. Essentially, parents select from a list of schools choosing the top picks they would like their child to attend. The article found that while 75% of parents got one of the top three schools selected from the list, over 75% chose a shool that was not in their area as their top choice. The article points out that many parents opt to send their kids to schools that are not in the neighborhood for a variety of reasons. The story states that, " Almost 40 percent of those incoming kindergarten parents wanted a school that offered a language immersion program, and 20 percent chose one of the district's eight K-8 schools first. Demand for many of those programs or schools was more than 200 percent above capacity."

Furthermore, half of all parents listed one of 14 top schools as their prefered school for their child. School assignment requests from African American and Latino families was up 20%, according to the district's numbers which is substantial because these demographics have notoriously low repuest rates. Parents who do not request a school for their child are assigned one based on space. There are complaints about the system. "That's what's driving people out of San Francisco," said Johnny K. Wang, a political consultant for San Francisco Students First, which advocates for neighborhood schools. "It's not an assignment system. It's a lottery system."

I can see how incredibly relevant this story is to parents in that city, because the educationsl tract your child gets on is so important to their ultimate quality of education and of course their future. It's not surprising to me that competition to get into these preferred schools, even in kindergarten, is fierce.