Open to all, sort of
Number 2 Pencil
Parents in tony Santa Clara are feverishly competing for spots in the city's well-regarded local schools, in the hopes of starting their children off on the right path.
And I do mean start, because we're talking about kindergarten.
When school starts in a few weeks, a chosen few will triumphantly enter Silicon Valley's top-ranked schools.
And then they'll start kindergarten.
Some of California's highest-achieving public schools have a policy of "open enrollment,'' which ostensibly welcomes students from all across each district. But as unwary parents in Santa Clara and Cupertino are finding out, it can be extremely difficult to get their children in. That's because a huge share of kindergarten spots at the most coveted schools go to siblings of students already enrolled. The rest have to take their chances in a lottery.
In some cases, those chances aren't so good. At Santa Clara Unified's Millikin Elementary, one of two schools in the state with perfect standardized test scores, only 4 percent of the spots for this fall went to kids in the lottery.
Why does Millikin Elementary sound familiar? Oh yeah, that's because I've posted on it before. That's the high-ranking elementary school that values discipline, order, and mission statements that actually mean something useful.
(Are well-to-do parents in affluent, high-tech areas fervently competing to get their kids into schools that value "free expression," ban "rote memorization," and consider testing abusive to children? Just asking.)
Anyway, the school defend the sibling policy on the grounds that it would inconvenient for parents to have kids in different schools. Which makes sense, but it does leave some parents - especially those with only one kid - wondering why Millikin claims to have much of an open enrollment.
kimberlyswygert.com |
