Now you want me to get into “whose ox is getting less coverage?” That’s splitting a fine if sensitive hair on a topic — albeit affecting us to different degrees and with different degrees of INADEQUATE prior coverage — where the editorial boards are totally in Boomberg’s pocket.

Email me at witzeroo (at) yahoo (dot) com and I’ll be happy to send you the reports. They’re eye-popping. (I didn’t cherry-pick re Queens. That’s as the Thompson report had it.)

Again, it’s not about boro v boro, but boros v Kleinberg.

Calling fellow parents “loudmouthed” accomplishes nothing.
But I take it as a compliment to my fellow parents’ organizational and rally-hosting skills.

I would have had no interest in getting into a “whose ox is worse gored” contest, esp after I suggested that looking ahead, based on recent experience, the path to local change is through broader unity. But the facts deserve some ink.

Please note the multi-boro coverage in this morning’s papers, despite your penned-later “Chalk It Up” quote.

But what I wrote above was re virtually every school NOT in D2, but on the UES — the focus of your prior quote. Press (and our) biases aside, what are the stats?
Per Comptroller’s May 2008 report, “Growing Pains,” as of 2006 UES schools were as a group operating at 129% of capacity. Comparable for Queens: Flushing 103%, College Point/Whitestone 105%.

But within D2, the accelerating overcrowding pertains to GV and Lower Manhattan as well, to different degrees, though two new elementary schools are opening in Lower Manhattan. e.g. My home school ALONE (PS41, GV) had a wait list of 90 ZONED kids at one point last spring looking ahead to this fall — not “10″ — and that was after one of our cluster rooms got nuked (but before the Pre-K got outsourced, which cleared another 25 of the 90).

Per DOE data, as of Fall 2008 actual enrollment — and “Blue Book” capacities, tallying it up school-by-school, D2 was short 615 seats by “historic” class capacities… or 2,000 by “target” capacities. “Net” there may be capacity, but then again, we have a collection of zoned schools; D2 is not one big catchment zone. (And neither is Queens. Worth note: D1 Lower East Side, is all choice, no zones.) And that was BEFORE the above-mentioned forecast of a 500 seat shortage for Kindergarten, most of which thankfully got handled. And that’s before we forecast occupancy of all the “Boomberg” towers under construction or permit.

Per the late Sen Moynihan, we’re each entitled to our own opinions — not our own facts. I’d be interested in similar stats for Queens. Perhaps Queens could emulate Manhattan BP Stringer’s Overcrowding Task Force (of which I’m a member, but hardly a key player) with a more neighborhood-specific perspective that includes pending construction (see “Still Crowded Out,” Sept 2008).

Divided we fall. NEXT fall, if not at this fall’s ballot box. Cheers.

For example: when District 2, which includes the UES, started complaining that virtually ALL of the schools in that neighborhood were overcrowded to the point of turning away incoming kindergarteners — at one point last spring the number was projected to be on the order of 500 or so — what did the NYPost do? They did the only fair thing they could.

Rather than fact-check the spin coming out of Tweed (G&T admissions would cure all — they did not), the ComPost so much as accused UES parents of endangering the safety of their own kids by hiring in-class aides (to mitigate the overcrowding perpetrated by Boomberg policies) not all of whom had been fingerprinted by press time.

I wish the press of its own volition had been covering problems in Quenns. But it wasn’t a gimme in Manhattan related to the domiciles of reporters. To whit: After months of organizing, District 2 held a rally at City Hall to protest rampant overcrowding CITY-WIDE. Press coverage? Gotham Schools. Crickets otherwise.

Point being: Don’t look for the press to champion the parents. In ANY boro. Not on Mayor Mike’s watch. What was their collective position on Mayoral Control? (think think)

We must hang together, for surely we are being well hung separately.

The short answer to your question is this: We worked our tails off for months to force the press to cover something they would have rather ignored. Organize. Politicize.

Education is not the top topic heading into the elections because the press is biased for Manhattan or against Queens. It’s because we reminded a number of politicians that every kid has one, and often two, VOTING PARENTS.

I’m open to other interpretations. That’s mine.

And proud they should be. But once again, Mayor Mike takes full, total, and exclusive credit for the resurgent interest in the public schools.

The state of the economy, its impact on parent employment, and the cost of private school (not to mention they’re full too), all had nothing to do with it. Nada. Zip. Perish the thought.