Monday, March 01, 2010

A test for Kindergarten?!

Submitted online application for academic magnet school in our public school system today and will sign up for testing to see if Lou Lou can get into the kindergarten there. Supposed to be the best school (state awards) and dh went to the open house and thought it would be a great place to be. Far cry from when I was going to school and my parents moved to a decent neighborhood with a decent school which I could walk to. The good thing is that is it very close to where I work. And we figure most of the parents there will give a (*2% about their kids since it takes an application to get in. The neighborhood school isn't bad either, but it is just about the same distance to drive as this one. Ethnic profiling is apparently part of the application too. Confusing since my kids are "other" but friends say it will help. Desegregation is really a strange thing...I can see the benefits for some, but mostly it involves busing kids all over the city to get the right "mix" in each school.

1 comment:

dee said...

Desegregation here is all about inflating test scores at a particular "magnet" school in order to get more state funding (i.e., the better a school's test scores, the more $ the school gets). Florida's is a corrupt system that is failing our children. They also teach to the FCAT, the test used to 'judge' all students' aptitude.

So different from when my dh and I were students in this very same school system. Gone are the phonics-based learning programs and there was no state-mandated test like the FCAT.

I have a feeling that my dh and I are going to be doing a lot of supplementary teaching for J after she starts kindergarten this August. Thankfully, we are in a solid school district and the elementary school is a local one, endemic strictly to our neighborhood. Though it's not very diverse, I do feel confident in the things she will hopefully learn, with a little help from us, that is.

Hoping your school turns out to be a great place for your big girl :) Amazing how fast school creeps up, huh?