The report, by the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, which has long pushed for expanded school choice, compares choice policies in place in 25 urban school districts and how families took advantage of them.

New York City came in first, in part because students here are never assigned to schools based simply on where they live. Of the 25 districts, New York was the only one where students are assigned to schools based on applications that asked for families’ preferences, not just their address.

The city has a labyrinthine citywide high school matching process and district-based middle and elementary school admissions processes that many believe could be improved. In a district with more than 1,600 schools (the Brookings report tallies 1,474), the processes are seen as bringing order but also as sometimes pitting schools against each other and limiting options, particularly in high school, for students who aren’t happy with what they’ve chosen.

The Brookings report also gave New York credit for making data about school performance public and closing or restructuring low-performing schools. But its B grade would have been higher if it had more virtual school options and provided transportation when students enroll in schools outside their districts.

To tie in with the report, former city schools chancellor Joel Klein, who bolstered and expanded the city’s school choice policies, is speaking at Brookings’ Washington, D.C., offices today. Klein frequently said, as in an interview below with the libertarian news group Reason, that he wanted to give poor families the kind of school choice that middle-class families have long exercised.

Inside, Brooklyn Tech’s eight stories were something of a labyrinth — but no more so than the high school admissions process itself. Parents and students that we met outlined varying strategies for navigating the fair and the journey to high school.

Laura Napiza with daughter Samantha, left, who wants to be a teacher

Laura Napiza and her daughter Samantha tried traversing the hallways but seemed completely lost. “We just got here and it’s very overwhelming,” Laura Napiza said. “We’re looking for a high school with a strong academic program that also has something that she’d be interested in. Right now she wants to be a teacher.”

They said their goal was to visit the Queens High School of Teaching, Liberal Arts, and the Sciences and Maspeth High School — if they could find those tables. Saying they planned to inquire about graduation rates, student-to-teacher ratios and extracurricular options, the mother and daughter disappeared into the melee.

Spencer Jackson and Beverly Brailsford creating a plan of attack for the fair

Beverly Brailsford and her son Spencer Jackson came in with a clear plan of action: Head straight to the seventh floor and methodically work downwards, hitting only the schools with strong academic programs and track and field teams. First, though, the pair found a quiet hallway where they could sit down and prepare. With the high school directory in her lap, a pen in her hand, and a notebook turned to a fresh page, Brailsford took notes on schools such as Aviation High School and Medgar Evers College Preparatory School while Jackson played on his phone. “I think it’s more of a mom thing,” Brailsford said of the process. “As long as they have what he’s into, it works for him.”

Garfield Hall Sr., at left, and Garfield Hall Jr.

Garfield Hall and his son, also named Garfield Hall, maneuvered their way around the tables of specialized high schools set up in Brooklyn Tech’s gymnasium. The younger Hall said he has already been recruited by high school baseball coaches — high schools are allowed to recruit eighth-graders, but not transfer students — but the schools they represent don’t meet his father’s academic standards. “He thinks he’s going to go to the MLB, but he’s not. So, he’s trying to get into a good school with a good academic program,” the older Hall said. His son feigned shock and smiled. He said he’s just interested in the baseball.

Cindy Sapienza reads the high school directory

While masses of families swirled around them, Cindy Sapienza and her daughter Julia stood still in the center of the gymnasium, hovering over a high school directory. “We came last year so we understand the chaos,” Sapienza said. “We’re just trying to figure out what our options are.” Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant High School are frontrunners for the pair, along with the High School for Math, Science and Engineering, but they still have more questions that need to be answered: What AP courses are offered? What clubs and extracurriculars do you have? Are the teachers supportive of all students?

Robert Kibler and Tamra Thompson

Robert Kibler and Tamra Thompson had arrived an hour early and staked out the second spot in line knowing they wanted to make a beeline for Edward R. Murrow High School, but couldn’t figure out how to find the school’s booth. After asking two volunteers for directions, the pair labored up seven flights of stairs to the floor of Brooklyn schools. As Thompson led the way, scanning for Murrow, her mother’s alma mater, Kibler tried pointing out other options.

“You want to go look at Lincoln?” Kibler asked. No.

“That’s not on the list?” he pressed. No.

Kibler tried again. “You should go to Automotive,” he said. “You can build me a hot rod.” No.

And again when he stopped to chat with representatives from Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School, his own alma mater. “Where do you want to go to school?” the FDR rep asked Thompson.

“Murrow,” she said, then offered an alternative for the first time: “Or LaGuardia.”

“Or FDR!” Kibler added.

Kevin Ledlon, right, with son Kieran, in a stairwell at Brooklyn Tech

As Kevin Ledlon made his way down the stairwell with his son Kieran, he reminisced about his time as a student at Brooklyn Tech, where he had to jump up the same stairs for track practice. Kieran, who plays clarinet and has dreams of becoming a doctor, wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and attend Brooklyn Tech. But he said he understands that admissions comes down to a single test. To help in the hunt for other schools where Kieran could pursue his musical and scientific interests, Ledlon armed himself with Clara Hemphill’s “New York City’s Best Public High Schools: A Parents’ Guide.” “I told him we’re not going to waste our time, we’re just going to go to these schools,” Ledlon said.

In the past, eighth-graders did not all find out at the same time where they had been admitted to high school. Some students — those who won admission to the city’s elite specialized high schools or to LaGuardia High School, a performing arts school — found out in mid-February where they got in. Students who didn’t apply to those schools or weren’t admitted didn’t learn what high school had accepted them until late March.

Starting next year, all high school applicants will find out at the same time in February where they are headed to high school, according to an Insideschools report about tweaks to the admissions process.

The change will likely come as a relief to students, many of whom found the two-part schedule stressful. In March, eighth-grader Audrey Bachman wrote in the Community section about “the empty feeling of not knowing” where she would go to high school after many of her classmates already knew their options:

But when I think about all of this, all this drama and emotion … all for one thing that is determined by some test?  What 13-year-old should have to deal with this? The fact that the high school process in New York City is set up in a way that makes some kids feel like losers and some kids feel like winners in the end is not a very good life lesson.

Data released on high school admissions by the Department of Education today shows that while fewer eighth-graders applied for seats in public high schools — down from 80,412 last year to 78,747 this year — the process has become more competitive. Fewer students were matched to one of their top five choices and more of them weren’t matched to any schools at all.

City officials’ explanation for this shift is that more eighth graders’ top choices were concentrated in the same set of schools. With so many students vying for the same schools — many of them among the city’s top-performing — fewer students got what they wanted.

This year, 83 percent of students landed one of their top five high school choices, down from 86 percent last year. The number of unmatched students — eighth-graders who weren’t paired with a high school and who will have to reapply to schools with open seats — swelled from 6,694 last year to 8,239 this year.

DOE officials attributed the sudden popularity of some schools to the city’s decision to include schools’ graduation rates in the high school directory. Schools with graduation rates above 90 percent saw a 30 percent rise in applications, while schools whose graduation rates are below 50 percent received 34 percent fewer applications.

The school with the highest number of applications, Baruch College Campus High School, is listed as having a 100 percent graduation rate. It received 7,606 applications, 61 percent more than last year.

“What we see is that when families have more information, especially with regard to graduation rates, they naturally gravitate toward those better options for their kids,” said Deputy Chancellor Marc Sternberg in a statement. “So we need to keep providing families with more high quality schools.”

Another possible explanation for the increase in applications to top schools is that students might have been deterred from applying to schools the city said it would try to close, in part because of the schools’ low graduation rates. Earlier this year, the citywide school board voted to close 14 high schools starting this summer. Students who had applied to the schools couldn’t be matched there, making it more likely for them to wind up without a placement at all. In contrast, last year, a lawsuit required that students be assigned to schools the city had tried to close.

Not all students learned which high schools they’ll attend next year. In addition to the over 8,000 eighth-graders who were not assigned to a high school, some schools sent acceptance letters to students’ homes. While these letters will take a few days to arrive, other students were told directly by their guidance counselors today. Eighth-graders who were not matched must apply by April 15 to schools that did not fill up in the main round of admissions. They’ll find out by the end of May where they’ll enroll in September.

Here are the 10 most-applied-to high schools this year:

Fernelys Sanchez was admitted to Lehman High School in the Bronx but wanted to play baseball for George Washington’s winning team, the Times reports. So he moved into his father’s apartment in Washington Heights. Then he tried — for more than a year before he succeeded — to win a transfer.

But a policy shift over the last several years means that the city’s system of school choice largely closes off once students are in high school.

“For whatever reason, it has become increasingly difficult, almost impossible, to get a transfer to another regular high school,” Pamela Wheaton of Insideschools told me two years ago. City officials say it’s not educationally sound for students to change high schools unless they absolutely have to.

The city gives three reasons students can transfer from one high school to another: a long commute, a safety risk, or a health issue. Sanchez’s family said he tried all of them:

The bureaucratic swordplay over the boy lasted for 14 months. Fernelys said the trek to Lehman was wearing him out. “The district said the computer showed that the trip was 1 hour 26 minutes, and they would not approve a transfer unless it was 90 minutes,” said Melvin Perez, a family friend who interpreted for Fernelys’s mother.

Fernelys began cutting classes, and his grades fell. In February 2009, he reported that he had been jumped and forced to hand over his iPod, but his request to transfer for safety reasons was denied on the grounds that Lehman officials believed “it was all a lie, a setup, that he just wanted to leave,” Mr. Perez said.

Finally, the teenager went to doctors, who said — in effect — that he was stressed out by going to Lehman, and, a few weeks into sophomore year, he was granted a medical transfer to George Washington. He made the team.

Now that all transfers are handled centrally, “guidance transfers,” which counselors were once able to award to students who could make the case that they’d be better off at another school, essentially do not exist, Wheaton said.

But there’s actually a fourth way that students can switch schools: by reapplying for 10th grade, which must happen about two months into their first year at a school. It’s not clear from the article whether Sanchez attempted that route, which could have gotten him to George Washington sooner.

We received a letter to Chancellor Joel Klein from Catherine Fleischmann, an Upper West Side mother whose eighth-grader still doesn’t know where she’ll attend high school. Fleischmann’s daughter is one of more than 6,500 eighth-graders who didn’t get into any of the schools they applied to. Unhappy with the second-round school options, Fleischmann filed an appeal earlier this month and will find out the outcome by mid-July.

“I can’t begin to tell you what a nightmare this has been for us,” Fleischmann told me. Here’s her letter to Klein:

Dear Chancellor Klein,

I am writing to seek your help.

My sweet, hardworking, dedicated daughter is an 8^th-grade honor student at Delta middle school, an academically accelerated middle school. She has had almost perfect attendance since kindergarten. Unfortunately, she was not matched to one of her first choice high schools, even though there were still openings in those schools. Her second-choice tier of schools consists of schools at which she will neither be safe nor academically challenged.

My daughter did not hear of this devastating news by way of a letter sent to our home but rather from her guidance counselor at school. An absurdity in and of itself! When she was told of this terrible situation, she was so distraught that she spent hours roaming the streets hysterically crying because she had no high school to attend. The transition from middle school to high school is a very important developmental milestone for any child. Without a permanent school placement, there is no way for my daughter to emotionally prepare herself for this very difficult life transition.

As a lifelong New Yorker and the mother of three wonderful children, I have worked hard the last 17 years to ensure my children receive the best education possible — something I know the New York City Department of Education can offer. My oldest son graduated from Stuyvesant and I have never doubted the quality of the education he received. I was happier than if I had won the lottery when he was accepted to Stuyvesant. Today, however, my worst nightmare has become an unbearable reality — my earnest, dedicated daughter was not matched to any of her first choice high schools. How do you explain the injustice of this random process to a heartbroken, embarrassed, ashamed child?

My daughter is a very focused, hardworking, sensible and caring individual. She has performed community service at an elementary afterschool program. She has helped raise funds for Katrina victims and was acknowledged in Reuters and by the Red Cross. She is a star athlete in soccer and basketball. She has always been ranked at the higher level in her class. Her former teachers from nursery school through middle school are astonished that this has happened to their former star student.

Following months of touring high schools and listening to advice from her older brothers, my daughter finalized the list of schools she wanted to attend based on what she believed would afford her the most opportunity for academic success. Because of an entrenched random system, she was not matched to any of her first round schools. This absolutely absurd process has led me to a place where I never expected to find myself, needing to appeal this most ridiculous and unconscionable oversight. The system has only succeeded in turning my daughter’s life upside down. She remains on unsteady ground while also having to endure humiliation and ostracization by her peers for not having a high school match.

Due to the way that the current system is set up, the message you are sending children is that it does not matter how hard they work, they could still wind up without any place to go. I understand that year after year more than 7,000 students do not get matched to a high school. This is an incomprehensible and unacceptable practice, whether it is happening to my daughter or another parent’s child.

This is the greatest city in the world but our education system does not reflect that. There is a major shortage of good schools and too few solutions put forward by our educators to remedy this problem.

I hope that this situation will be addressed so that my daughter will be placed in a high school of her choice, which will be academically challenging and appropriate for her. She deserves to be able to picture herself in a new place, her new high school, on her graduation day.

I look forward to hearing from you as to how you intend to rectify this situation.

Thank you for your anticipated assistance.

Sincerely,
Catherine Fleischmann

Still, more than 6,500 eighth-graders didn’t get into any high school at all, according to the Department of Education’s annual press release touting admissions results. The city released the results today, nearly a month later than usual and more than two weeks after the department mailed out admissions decisions that had been delayed by a lawsuit over school closures.

The 80,412 students who submitted high school applications included 8,382 students who applied to one of the 14 high schools the city tried to close this year. Originally, the department planned to assign those students to another high school listed on their application. But after the city lost a lawsuit stopping the school closures, the department generated new matches for the students, giving 1,397 of them a choice between attending a school the city has deemed failing and another school the student ranked lower. (The other 7,000 students ranked the schools slated for closure so low on their applications that they were placed elsewhere.) Students have until the end of next week to choose, according to a letter sent to principals last week by Leonard Trerotola, the department’s high school enrollment director.

An additional 174 students who were matched with schools originally slated to close will be able to submit an application in the supplementary round, typically reserved for students who were not accepted to any school. The 6,520 other students who did not receive a high school match will also be able to apply to the schools originally slated to close, Treratola told principals. The department also opted not to match any of the 1,087 students who applied to selective programs at the once-closing schools with those programs but will allow the students to reapply, according to the press release.

When the ruling was first announced last month, teachers union president Michael Mulgrew told GothamSchools that the union would sue to force the city to place students in the schools that were originally proposed for closure. Dick Riley, a union spokesman, would not comment today on the results of the high school admissions process.

The complete press release is below.

CHANCELLOR KLEIN ANNOUNCES MORE THAN 80 PERCENT OF STUDENTS ADMITTED TO A TOP CHOICE HIGH SCHOOL FOR FIFTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein today announced that 86 percent (69,363) of the 80,412 eighth grade students who applied for admission to New York City public high schools in 2010 have been matched to one of their top five choices. More than half of the applicants – 52 percent (41,667) – received their first choice, 77 percent (61,777) of students received one of their top three choices, and 86 percent (69,363) received one of their top five choices-marking the fifth consecutive year that more than 80 percent of high school applicants received one of their top five choices. In all, 92 percent of students (73,718) were matched with one of their choices.

 ”Our high school admissions process provides tremendously varied options that respond to the diverse needs and interests of our students, with the aim of best preparing them for success in college and their careers,” Chancellor Klein said. “I am pleased that for the fifth consecutive year, more than 80 percent of students were admitted to one of their top five choices.”

Among this year’s applicants, 20,140 students listed a new small school as their first choice, and 12,638 of those students – 63 percent – were matched to their first choice. A total of 214 new small secondary schools accepting ninth-graders have opened since 2002, and 12 more will open at the start of the 2010-11 school year.

The high school admissions process consists of three rounds and begins after students list up to 12 high school programs in order of preference on their applications. In the first round, students applying to the City’s specialized high schools receive their matches; this round was conducted in February.  During the second round, known as the main round, the vast majority of eighth-graders receive their high school match; these letters were sent earlier this month. Students were matched to their highest choice possible based on their interests, eligibility, and the selection method used by schools. This year, 6,694 students did not receive a match in the main round and have been automatically entered into the third round, known as the supplementary round.

Additionally, after a recent State Supreme Court ruling halted the City’s plans to phase out 19 failing schools, the Department ran a match process for students who listed one of the schools originally slated for phase-out on their initial high school application. Of the 8,382 students who selected a phase-out school or program on their applications, 1,397 were matched to one of those programs. Pending an appeal of the Court’s decision, most of those students (1,221) can choose between two options-the phase-out school or the school they were matched to in the main round of the process. The remaining 174 students did not receive a main round match and will be able to select a second school option during the supplementary round.

Screened programs at the phase-out schools were also listed by 1,087 of the 8,382 students on their initial applications, and these students will be able to reapply to any of the screened programs they listed.  If the City wins its appeal, students who select phase-out schools or programs will attend the schools they were matched to in either the main or supplementary round.

Students participating in the supplementary round have until April 29 to submit their choice forms to guidance counselors. The Department of Education will host an information and counseling fair for students about the supplementary round on Thursday, April 22, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Educational Campus in Manhattan (122 Amsterdam Avenue, at 66^thstreet). School representatives and admissions counselors will be available to discuss high school options with students and their families. Students in the supplementary round will receive high school matches on May 26.

Details about the 2010 high school match results are below.

 

But for the 8,500 students who applied to one of the 14 high schools the city tried to close this year, there’s little guidance in the 14-page ruling.

The ruling adds even more confusion to an already complicated high school matching process. It doesn’t explicitly tell the city to release high school placement letters, originally set to go home Wednesday, to students who didn’t apply to any of the schools whose closures were contested. But it also says that the court doesn’t intend to prevent most eighth-graders from finding out their placements.

“The court wishes to make clear, however, that this decision is not intended to prevent completion of the matching process for any students who are not directly affected by the proposed closure or phaseout of the 19 schools, and such actions shall not be construed as a violation of this decision and order,” the decision reads.

That’s good news for most eighth-graders, and Chancellor Klein is sending a letter home today explaining that match letters will be mailed home “as soon as possible.” But the ruling doesn’t tell the city what to do for the 8,500 students who tried to pick one of the schools that were later slated for closure. Department officials say they won’t know what will happen with those students’ letters until they finish reviewing the court decision, according to spokesman Daniel Kanner. The delay is especially likely to frustrate students who included one of the closing schools among their 12 choices but who actually preferred to be matched at another school.

Here’s the letter Klein is sending home with eighth-graders today:

March 26, 2010
Dear Parent/Guardian,

A decision has just been reached in the lawsuit brought by the UFT and others that has had an impact on the high school admissions process. As soon as possible, the Office of Student Enrollment will mail your child’s high school admissions letter to the home address listed on his or her high school application.

We know how difficult this delay has been for you and for your family, and we thank you for your patience. In the meantime, please continue to check the Department of Education’s Web site at www.nyc.gov/schools, or call 311, for updated information.

Sincerely,
Joel I. Klein
Chancellor

Image courtesy of the Center for New York City Affairs

The city’s complicated high school application process makes low-income and non-English-speaking students more likely to wind up in low-performing schools, some advocates and researchers say.

To get into high school, New York City students must navigate a labyrinthine application process that can stump even the savviest parent. The Center for New York City Affairs illustrated the process with a flow chart in its recent report about small schools.

The report found that a disproportionate number of the city’s neediest students continue to wind up in large, lower-performing high schools, even as the number of small schools has increased. Their concentration has in turn caused the large schools to struggle even more, the report concluded.

The city’s primary source of information intended to help families maneuver though the process is its annual directory of all 500-odd high schools. This year’s 640-page directory is being distributed to seventh graders before the end of the week, with one major change: Now, schools’ progress report grades and quality review ratings are included. Before last year, each school’s page included its 4-year graduation rate and its math and English Regents exam passing rates. Last year’s directory included no performance data at all.

The new data is more robust than what the directory included before, according to a department spokesman, Andrew Jacob. That’s because the progress report grades take into account graduation rates and Regents pass rates as well as other performance data, Jacob said. The reports have been criticized for being difficult to understand and not statistically sound, although their critics have said the high school metrics are more reliable.

Flimsy high school information can lead to bad choices, especially for 13-year-olds who are navigating the application process largely on their own, according to panelists speaking last week at discussion about the small schools report.

One problem is that when schools advertise, they don’t always share the complete or most accurate picture, said New York University professor Pedro Noguera.

Another problem, he said, is that middle school guidance counselors often do not have the resources they need to help students make good decisions.

Steven Duch, the principal of Hillcrest High School in Queens, agreed, saying the sheer number of high schools, combined with guidance counselors’ workloads, means the counselors have little more information than students can find in the directory. “They don’t know what the high schools look like,” he said. “They haven’t visited, they dont have information at their fingertips. They probably dont have the data.”

(One place where counselors could find a lot of this information is on Insideschools.org, the Web site that provides school reviews written by trained reporters along with comments from parents, teachers, and students. But Insideschools is set to close up shop next week unless it secures substantial new funding. I used to work at Insideschools.)

High school choice has been a mixed bag for the city’s neediest students, panelists said. “You have to have the resources to access the choice,” said Noguera.

“On the other hand, no choice meant Thomas Jefferson for all of the kids in East New York,” responded Clara Hemphill, the panel’s moderator and the lead author of the report. She was referring to the large high school in Brooklyn that the city closed in 2007 because of its poor performance.

Beacon High School has accepted fewer minority and low-income students every year since it adopted a selective admissions procedures in 2005, even as the total number of students has been rising, according to the May 15 column by Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News.

The column reignited an ongoing conversation at Beacon about the school’s changing demographics, a Beacon senior, Cory Meara-Bainbridge, told me. After it appeared, a group of about 15 students banded together to plan a forum to begin a tough conversation about how the school’s unique admissions procedures might influence who applies and gets into the elite Upper West Side high school. Beacon requires not only high grades, strong test scores, and a portfolio of work, but also an in-person interview for admission. Current students sit on the interview committees.

So far, students say, the school’s administration has declined to participate in the discussion. Principal Ruth Lacey turned down an invitation to attend the forum tonight, which is being held at a local church because the school did not want to host it, according to a press release from the students. Most teachers are also planning to stay away, Meara-Bainbridge told me. “They didn’t want to come because they felt like it would be an attack on them,” she said. “But it’s not going to be that way. We’re creating dialogue. We love our school and we just want to make it better.”

The forum is being moderated by Pedro Noguera, the New York University education professor who wrote on GothamSchools recently that schools need to address the problems of poverty. Noguera is also a Beacon parent. (Other Beacon parents include Gov. David Paterson, City Council member Bill de Blasio, and James Liebman, the schools’ accountability czar.)

“Beacon is a great school in every way,” Noguera told me today. “But I think the concern that students are raising — and it’s a concern the whole city should be aware of — is that a number of better schools are increasingly not available to a diverse cross-section of the city. And that’s, I think, a real problem.”

Ultimately, the problem requires a policy remedy “from the top,” Noguera said. “The chancellor needs to take some leadership on this.”

For now, Beacon students are working from the ground up to figure out why fewer minority and low-income students are applying and are identifying ways to boost the numbers, Meara-Bainbridge said. The purpose of tonight’s forum is to work toward a set of policy recommendations, she said. ”We’re not exactly sure yet what needs to change but we need to get working on it with the administration,” she told me.

The students have already generated a slate of potential policy recommendations, including starting a volunteer program at PS 191, a local elementary school that draws most of its students from housing projects near Lincoln Center. Other suggestions include convening a committee to study admissions patterns at Beacon and other schools and increasing support for struggling students.

The recommendations have little chance to be implemented if the school’s administration continues to avoid the uncomfortable topics of race and class, Noguera said. “They don’t want the discussion to take place and that’s a very sad reflection,” he said. “It’s a progressive school and the fact that their students want to deal with these issues is a positive sign. There’s no reason to be defensive.”

Last week, community groups and a group of professors, including Noguera, wrote to Lacey and Klein urging them to participate in the forum. Chief Schools Officer Eric Nadelstern replied on Klein’s behalf, disputing the numbers the group cited and arguing that Beacon is one of the most diverse high schools in Manhattan. Still, he said, the department would commit to helping the school “conduct target recruitment in underrepresented communities.” He did not specify the form the outreach might take or whether the school would receive additional resources to make it happen.

Targeted recruitment would be helpful, Noguera said, but it would do little to address the racial and economic segregation that pervades many city schools, especially the selective high schools. The proportion of black and Hispanic students at other elite schools has been dropping in recent years, the New York Times reported last summer.

“I don’t think this is a Beacon matter,” he said. “Beacon is the tip of the iceberg. What’s unique is that the kids at Beacon are the ones raising the issue.”

Educators Letter and Nadelstern’s Response

Charter school principal Eddie Calderon-Melendez, right, speaking to parents and students at his schools' admission lottery. (GothamSchools, Flickr)

The conventional wisdom about charter schools is that they allow families a way out of their zoned schools. But for soon-to-be high school students, charter schools actually provide the nearest alternative to a zoned option, according to one school operator.

The high school admissions program run by the Department of Education is citywide, meaning that students can apply to any school in the city. But the state law governing charter schools treats high schools just like schools serving younger students: They are required to give priority in admissions to students living in their school district.

Because many charter schools have more applicants than seats, charter high schools necessarily end up with mostly students from their district. For that reason, “we’re actually a throwback to the zoned school,” Eddie Calderon-Melendez, the principal of Williamsburg Charter High School, told me last week at the lottery for the three schools in his Believe Network.

There are currently only a handful of DOE high schools who admit students based on their addresses, and there are no zoned high schools left in all of Manhattan. The decline of zoned high schools began decades ago when the city first introduced high school choice. By the time Joel Klein became chancellor, large zoned schools were underperforming, and he ramped up the rate at which they were broken down and replaced by small schools open to all high school applicants. 

Perhaps because of the low quality of what had once been zoned high schools, few have questioned the disappearance of zoned high schools. But Calderon-Melendez said serving a local population, even at the high school level, has benefits that citywide schools cannot replicate. When high schoolers go to school in their own neighborhood, they feel safer and more secure, they can participate more easily in after school programs, and their parents can stay involved, he said.

Calderon-Melendez said the state’s charter school law makes it possible for him to run schools that meet the particular needs of students in District 14, which includes Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and parts of Bushwick. Most of WCS’s students, including Calderon-Melendez’s own son, come from the neighborhood, and Calderon-Melendez said his goal is for the school’s new building, located in Bushwick, to become a community center for its families. He said he looks for local ties when hiring teachers and tries to provide paying jobs for parents who need work. WCS is even serving members of the neighborhood’s Polish community, who historically have not enrolled in its schools; Calderon-Melendez said more than 10 percent of his students speak Polish at home.

WCS is already keeping some students in the neighborhood. At the lottery last week, I met several students who said they would be attending one of the schools in the nearby Grand Street Campus if they didn’t get a spot at WCS. But far more of the eighth graders I spoke to said they would be commuting into Manhattan and Queens next year if they didn’t win a spot in the lottery, to schools such as Murray Bergtraum, Graphic Communication Arts, and Health Professions.

Steven Taveras holds up a card indicating that he was the first student selected for Believe Southside Charter High School.

Last week, most eighth graders in the city found out which high school had accepted them. Tonight, hundreds of eighth graders in Brooklyn learned whether they would be lucky enough to have a charter high school choice for this fall as well.

I joined hundreds of the hopeful eighth graders for an admission lottery trifecta held in Greenpoint tonight, the first time charter schools could legally conduct their lotteries. The students had all applied for one or more of the schools in the brand-new Believe High Schools Network. The first school in that network, Williamsburg Charter High School, opened in 2004, and two more, Believe Northside and Believe Southside, are set to open this fall. Before the lottery, WCS founding principal Eddie Calderon-Melendez told me that over 700 students had submitted applications for the 500 available spots, some applying to two or even all three of the schools.

“I can feel how nervous you are,” said City Council member Diana Reyna, who ceremonially drew the first names in the lottery, to a chorus of agreement. “My heart is racing as much as yours.”

The first two names drawn were for students who weren’t present. But when Steven Taveras heard his name called to be the first student selected for Believe Southside, he leapt from his seat and bounded to the front of the auditorium, where he was immediately pulled into a round of handshakes and photographs.

A few minutes later, the IS 318 student was still beaming, but he said he wasn’t sure why he’d be giving up his seat at nearby Progress High School. “Mommy picked everything,” his mother, Maria Taveras, interjected. She said her younger son was thriving at his charter school, Williamsburg Collegiate, and she wanted the same kind of disciplined environment for Steven. “It’s a better beginning for him,” she said.

Alida Mayer, right, celebrates her acceptance to Williamsburg Charter High School at tonight's lottery.

Alida Mayer was the next student selected. The eighth grader at St. Nicholas School came with two close friends to the lottery, which she said she entered after attending a WCS information session. She said the teachers all seemed to have a good sense of humor, unlike the teachers at her Catholic school. She told me she had been accepted to a vocational school in Queens but would most likely have been headed to St Joseph’s, another parochial school, if she hadn’t gotten lucky in the lottery tonight.

As the numbers neared 300, the limit for how many students will enroll at the flagship school in the fall, an anxious silence settled over the remaining families. Those whose names weren’t drawn will be placed on a waiting list, which Calderon-Melendez told me has stretched in the past to 2,000 names. The waitlist rarely moves, he told me, but parents still call every year to make sure their children are still on it. ”Those are sad phone calls,” he said.

 The 350th name called tonight was Ruth Igbayo’s. The eighth grader at MS 61 was accepted to the well regarded science program at Abraham Lincoln High School, but she said she would hold out for a seat in one of the Believe charter schools. “I heard they are for more gifted students,” she said. “I want to take more accelerated classes.”

But there are always hidden gems that still have spots open: either new schools led by educators with a strong track record or excellent programs inside middling high schools. In an article that it unfortunately must reprise every year, Insideschools runs down the options for the nearly 7,500 students who didn’t get a high school match this week. The site is also asking its users to recommend schools on the Department of Education’s three-page list of available spots.

I see a handful of schools on the list that look like they might be solid choices for students still looking for a high school spot. One, The Cinema School, is the selective school in the Bronx that will be run in partnership with the Ghetto Film School. I was also impressed by Brooklyn’s School for International Studies when I visited several years ago, and I’ve heard good things from students who have since attended. And the progressive Queens School of Inquiry, which is adding a ninth grade in the fall, was one of the more memorable schools I’ve visited; it was at QSI where I first encountered competitive speed-stacking.

Do you see other schools you’d recommend on the list (which you can read in full below the jump)? If so, for what kind of student?

Back in December, each eighth grader submitted an application ranking up to 12 high schools, joined by a handful of high school freshmen hoping to change schools for tenth grade. Then the Department of Education’s computer system matched applicants to schools based on their qualifications and preferences. (Check out Insideschools for a more detailed description of the matching process.) Today, students found out what result the computer spat out for them.

The DOE announced today that 86 percent of the 86,169 applicants matched with one of their top five high school picks, and that 91 percent matched with a school somewhere on their list. About 6,000 students found out their high school options last month by scoring high enough on the specialized high school exam to win admission to one of those schools, or by winning admission to LaGuardia, the city’s elite performing arts school.

The DOE delivers match letters to middle schools, and the schools pass them on to their students. Many simply hand out the letters at the end of the school day, allowing students to compare outcomes, meet with guidance counselors, and in some cases, be humiliated by not getting in anywhere. I spoke to one mother today who said her daughter’s school had elected to send the letters by mail. “I guess now they’ll cry it out at home,” she said.

For the fourth year in a row, 9 percent of applicants — this year, 7,455 — didn’t get into any of the schools they listed. They have a week before they must submit a new application listing only schools that still have spots. In the past, those schools have usually been low-performing or too new to have a track record.

Here’s the DOE’s full press release about this year’s high school admissions results:

CHANCELLOR KLEIN ANNOUNCES MORE THAN 80 PERCENT OF STUDENTS ADMITTED TO A TOP CHOICE HIGH SCHOOL FOR FOURTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR 

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein today announced that 86 percent (74,064) of the 86,169 students who applied for admission to a New York City public high school in 2009 have been matched to one of their top five choices. Over half of the applicants – 51 percent (44,012) – received their first choice school, up slightly from 50 percent last year. A total of 76 percent (65,780) of the students who applied received one of their top three choices, the same percentage as last year. This is the fourth consecutive year that more than 80 percent of high school applicants received one of their top five choices. In total, 91 percent of students (78,714) were matched with one of their choices, the same percentage as last year.            

“The right high school can prepare a student for success in college and beyond. That’s why I’m so pleased that for the fourth consecutive year, more students than ever before will be able to attend one of their top choice schools,” Chancellor Klein said. “These results show that students and their families are taking advantage of the new high school options we’ve created and the extensive information we provide to help them make informed choices.” 

This year, 18,213 students listed a new small school as their first choice, and 11,384 of those students – 63 percent – were matched to their first choices. A total of 197 new small secondary schools accepting 9th graders have opened since 2002, and 10 more will open at the start of the 2009-10 school year. Seven additional schools opened since 2002 will enroll their first 9^th grade classes in the 2009-10 school year.            

The Department of Education conducts extensive outreach to families about the high school admissions process, beginning during the sixth grade. High school applicants receive the annual, 500-page High School Directory, which provides them with information about every high school. They also receive several other publications that guide them through the admissions process. In addition, the Department of Education hosts Citywide high school fairs, workshops, and information sessions for several months before students’ applications are due.  Middle and high school administrators, guidance counselors, parent coordinators, and community partners help students and families evaluate their options and make informed choices. 

Students can list up to twelve high school programs on their applications in order of preference. Schools also rank students. Then, students are matched to the school they ranked highest that also ranked them. The admission process consists of three rounds: the first round for students applying to the City’s Specialized High Schools, the main round (this round), and the supplementary round for students not matched during the main round.             

On March 31 from 6 to 9 p.m., the DOE will host an information fair at the Martin Luther King Educational Campus for students who will participate in the supplementary application round. Representatives from schools and high school admissions counselors will be available to discuss high school options with students and their families. Supplementary round applications are due to school guidance counselors on April 3. Students who participate in the supplementary round will receive their high school match by April 30.             

Details about the 2009 high school match results are below.  

Choice	Total
1	44,012
2	13,736
3	8,032
4	5,082
5	3,202
6	1,968
7	1,138
8	695
9	407
10	233
11	119
12	90
None	7,455
Total	86,169

…but if you think parents are mystified and anxious this week, just check in on Facebook posts. If you don’t have your own Facebook to compare notes with other parents, ask your child to share — if they are willing. You will see status updates about tears and depression, along with posts expressing anger, happiness and disgust about having to wait until late March for a “match.” The Facebook friends are offering one another words of comfort, like “everything happens for a reason,” or “Not everyone likes Stuyvesant anyway.”

There are discussions of how the wrong kids get in, along with notes and advice comparing the different schools and lots of the standard: “You rock dude!” and “congrats, ur awesome!”

She raises a lot of questions, from how in the world the most selective schools (Beacon, Bard, Townsend Harris) pick their students to whether New York City’s ambitious, subway-savvy families would be happy with the Leave it to Beaver neighborhood high school alternative.

There’s also the question of whether selective high schools meet Chancellor Joel Klein’s equity goals. Seth Andrew, the charter school principal in Harlem, calls what the selective schools do “creaming.”

Offers of admission by borough. Data from the Department of Education

More than 6,000 eighth- and ninth-graders got good news today: offers of admission to one of the city’s nine specialized high schools.

For the 23,000 other students who took the Specialized High School Admission Test last October, the wait to find out about what school they’ll attend this fall will continue until the end of next month. They’ll find out where they’ve been accepted at the same time as the tens of thousands of eighth graders who did not try to get into one of the city’s most elite schools.

At eight city schools, including Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, admission is based on students’ scores on the ultracompetitive Specialized High Schools Admission Test, which 29,000 eighth- and ninth-graders took last October. Admission to the ninth school, LaGuardia, depends on music or art auditions and grades.

More than 100 more students were offered spots at LaGuardia this year, 1,041 compared to 936 last year. The school is graduating a larger-than-normal class this June and so extended more offers of admission than it has in the past, according to Andrew Jacob, a Department of Education spokesman.

At the other schools, the number of students accepted was about the same as last year, when the number of offers jumped by nearly 400. That increase added new seats at several schools and made sure the city’s newest specialized high school, Brooklyn Latin, had enough students accept their offers of admission to fill the freshman class.

Most of the students who got into a specialized high school today also got an offer from a non-specialized high school. Those students will spend the next few weeks making a tough but wonderful decision between two of their top-choice high schools.

“The majority of the kids are saying, if this is going to happen, they’re not going to continue going to school,” Vickie LaSalle, whose daughter is a junior, said today. “Some of them are saying they’re going to get their GED. Some are saying they’re going to drop out.”

That’s what another mother predicted on Tuesday morning, just after the school’s closure was announced. She said she thought many of the students would drop out rather than commute to schools outside of Red Hook, a neighborhood that doesn’t have a subway station

We know the application process makes middle class parents’ hair turn gray, she writes. But the point of centralization was not to please middle class parents. It was to make the process of finding a high school fairer for all the city’s students. The real question the reader would like reporters to ask is, has the new structure done that?

She says there are signs of bumps — the sort that would make the system tough for a poor parent to navigate. She writes:

Plus, the real story that is not getting out there is how little time the high schools have to handle the high school admissions process and the kids they already have.
Some schools simply don’t have time to read all the essays and tests and conduct the interviews. One school I called to find out if my son would get an get an interview said: “We didn’t have time to grade the third round of tests, we are really behind, so we don’t know what is going to happen.’’

I wonder how many of today’s students know that only 40 years ago, Stuyvesant High School was boys-only? It wasn’t until 1969, when a young woman named Alice De Rivera successfully sued, that the ultra-competitive school admitted girls. I also wonder where De Rivera ended up. (Brooklyn Tech was the last of the three original exam schools to go coed, in 1972.)

The process can be messy and frustrating for everyone from special education students, who have to fly a little blind in figuring out which schools would accommodate them best, to the most academically successful students, who face monumental odds trying to get into the top specialized schools, like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.

At Inside Schools, Liz Willen, a former New York City education reporter who is now a New York City parent, marks the occasion by reviewing the steps that got her son to today — and offering this amazing quote:

Harvard University’s Dean of Admissions William Fitzsimmons, whose territory includes New York City, told me he’s always known “that it’s much more difficult to get into any school in New York than it is to get into Harvard.’’

Some GothamSchools review: We kicked off the season with advice from experts.