<p>Is NYC's giftedness testing and geographic placement system honest and transparent ...or bizarre and hard to work with?</p>
<p>Why I ask:,currently i'm shopping to buy an intergenerational housing unit with S-1 and DIL. In these gentrifying borough neighborhoods, public school rankings are dismal. If I knew there might be mobility through giftedness, I'd be more confident to purchase. Or we could homeschool.</p>
<p>Not that this grandchild is born yet, but I need to consider the possibility.</p>
<p>The testing is flawed, and there are not enough seats for kids that score high on the test.</p>
<p>But we will have a new mayor come November and everything is subject to change. Every candidate from both parties has pledged to improve access because it is a big issue among people with high voting rates.</p>
<p>The NYC public school system is byzantine. I could give you an opinion if you gave me the neighborhood or district number, but I think it’s a fool’s game to try to predict the future for a child who wasn’t born yet. If the house is in a gentrifying part of the city, public schools are likely to improve but there are no guarantees.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t mean this to be snarky but, since this child has yet to be born and we cannot presume his or her giftedness, you should be evaluating educational opportunities by assessing the availability of quality special needs programs, the quality and availability of services for disabled students, the quality and availability of programs for the gifted and, most important and most likely to be needed, the availability of quality education for the average child.</p>
<p>^that’s not snarky! It’s a very fair point. </p>
<p>With a young couple who is intellectually gifted, I am being optimistic here. DIL teaches children with autism, so we do think about the wide range of possibilities.</p>
<p>It’s a bit like writing, “my adult children are strong and athletic; where should they invest in housing where they might someday find good choices in athletic offerings in the public schools.” In actual fact, when the time comes, their child could be healthy and athletic… or not. Meanwhile, it’s just a hypothetical question until you see and know the grandchild. It’s humbling. </p>
<p>The placement of gifted seats varies sometimes from year to year. There are very few seats, the test is flawed and there is an entire industry devoted to prepping for the test.</p>
<p>The system is flawed. Probably due in part to prepping, the number meeting the cut off for gifted has soared and there aren’t enough spaces for all of them. I think another reason is that more young families are choosing to live in the City. (My old parish had more infant baptisms last year than it had had in a generation.) Because of the recession, more parents are opting for public schools. </p>
<p>New York has a two tier gifted program. Actually it’s more like 3 tier. If a kid gets into one of the best gifted programs, like Hunter Elementary or the Anderson program, it’s a great opportunity. </p>
<p>My local public school began a G& T program a couple of years ago. With the increase in the number of kids qualifying there’s pressure to create new programs.</p>
<p>I think that the idea of grandparents homeschooling is something that’s going to catch on in the future with more parents working and where grandparents don’t need to work. I will have to watch for it on my state homeschooling boards. I don’t expect grandkids anytime soon but would be happy to homeschool them should the need arise.</p>
<p>I’ll admit upfront that I’m not a fan of homeschooling. I really don’t think it’s necessary in New York City. We have a wide variety of educational options available.</p>
<p>I’d also advise folks not to pay too much attention to the school ratings. They are also pretty byzantine. My local public school has an abysmal rating. Part of the reason is that it has a very high percentage of kids from non-English speaking homes. They speak English too well to be in ESL programs, but still score much lower than American kids. Many of these kids aren’t immigrants. They are foreign kids who are just spending a few years in the US while their parents are working for NGOs and foreign corporations. The methodology doesn’t take this into account.</p>
<p>Well, as someone whose offspring attended G&T programs in NYC from k-12, I am oh so glad I never moved to the suburbs. I’m divorced and my offspring’s stepsiblings attended suburban public schools. They are very different than NYC public high schools. For my offspring, suburbia would have been far worse. Different strokes for different folks. </p>
<p>In referring to posts from “grads of NYC’s exam high schools” I suspect you mean cobrat. He’s one of a kind and I personally don’t think his experience is typical of Stuy grads. </p>
<p>I’ve lived in my neighborhood a long time. One thing that’s interesting is how many of the “kids” who grew up here and are now married and have kids themselves have chosen to live here. That’s despite the fact that most of the housing stock is made up of rentals. </p>
<p>We’ve always had a big contingent of people who tried the suburbs first and then gave up and moved to the City. It’s interesting to see the mix. Some are SAHMs who felt incredibly isolated in suburbia. Others are working parents who got sick of spending 2 hours a day commuting. Others actually move here after their kids reached school age because they disliked the emphasis on sports that is so common in suburbia. One family moved here from Princeton, NJ because they have a child who has Down’s syndrome. He was an outlier in Princeton. They claim that there are much better programs for him in NYC than in Princeton. </p>
<p>My D is married, but has no kids. She and spouse are already arguing about whether they’ll move to suburbia when and if their future children reach school age. She wishes so much that there were options as good as the public G&T she attended in the city where they live (which isn’t NYC). There aren’t. They hope that by the time their future kids are ready for school there will be. I hope so too.</p>
<p>I have to say I agree with EPTR about the lack of data here. One thing to ask yourself is how easy would it be to sale this property in 5-10 years if the school thing doesn’t work out. If you suspect it would be easy, what is the downside, the family could always move. That is certainly what people in my city do, at least before the housing bubble burst.</p>
<p>We have family in NYC and the school issue is pushing them out, not to the suburbs but out of the region. Of course, that is only one factor but it puts a time deadline on it.</p>
<p>Could someone maybe explain this a bit more, please? What is the testing process in NY and what are the qualification requirements? I don’t understand the concept of there not being enough seats for the kids who qualify. How are they not required to provide this programming?</p>
<p>The school thing can be a challenge in NYC, but there are options - as noted above. New York is an amazing place for kids to grow up. Just living there is an incredible education. The museums, arts performances, library events, architectural wonders, and wide multicultural opportunities are a thrill a minute for a grandparent and a grandchild.
You can pay whatever you choose at the Metropolitan museum or the Museum of Natural History, then spend the morning wandering through the Old Master paintings, the knights in armor, the Egyptian temple, the dinosaur skeletons, or whatever interests you. Then choose from authentic and affordable Chinese, Indian, Turkish, Italian, Japanese, Greek, Mexican, Vietnamese, Cuban, …etc for lunch. Next, take a free ride on the Staten Island ferry and glide by the Statue if Liberty to see what many immigrants first saw when they arrived in the US.
Now hit the New York Public Library for a special kids workshop ( free again) in paper making or family trees or origami or yoga. Dash off to Central Park for a (free!) workshop in birding or botany. Or maybe just get arising rod ( free rental) and fish in the lake. Yes, kids can fish in central park.
Hardest part? Choosing what to do tomorrow!</p>
<p>I don’t know why a previous poster suggested NYC was not a good place to homeschool. With all it’s resources, NYC would be Mecca for a homeschooler.</p>
<p>Alwaysamom. Yes, when speaking of NYC public schools, the first sentence is often "I don’t understand the concept of there not being enough seats . . . " in x kind of decent program for my kid. Yes. It is crazy crazy here, and there are not enough seats in any kind of program you might want. </p>
<p>If you are buying a house, buy it in a district such as Manhattan district 2, or in Brooklyn Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights, and you will probably be most likely all set. I’m sure there are more, that’s what I know. Otherwise, be prepared for hours of research. But if your grandchild is amazingly gifted, he/she can go to Hunter and then a great high school and be all set. There are limited spots in great high schools, but it’s entirely doable. It is much, much, much harder for average or somewhat above average kids who may not get what they need.</p>
<p>Although very gifted kids can have other problems that prevent them from doing well in school consistently. Gifted kids can get bad grades, too, in which case, they can be shut out of good programs, and end up in the lurch, so you can’t count your chickens . . .</p>
<p>And NYC really really can be awful for kids with special needs, and you may end up in a quagmire. Not to dissuade you from your plan. NYC is a wonderful place for raising children, and I feel blessed that I have raised my children here, but the school system is not for the faint of heart.</p>
<p>redpoint, I guess I don’t understand because where I live, if a child is identified as gifted, it is a legal Special Ed. designation, for which programming must be provided. An IEP requires it. The programming may be delivered in a variety of ways, depending on the district in which you live, e.g., self-contained programs, pull-out programs, a combination of small group and independent study, etc. </p>
<p>The cut-off in our district was the 98th percentile when my Ds were in school. Any student who scored at that percentile or above was eligible for the available gifted programs, and if every one of them opted to take advantage, for instance, of the self-contained programming, then the number of classes for that grade would have been increased to accommodate them. There was no set number of available seats, nor could there be, due to the requirements in the Education Act. This requirement to provide programming extends to all students with a Special Ed. identification, not just those who are academically gifted.</p>
<p>Alwaysamom, it Works backward here. The number if seats are set for gifted students and then they are filled with the top X number of scorers. When the seats are filled, that’s it. Same with general placement. If the seats are filled, kids have to go somewhere else. There was a giant mess with misgrading of the GT exam. Also, sometimes the gifted programs get moved out of specific schools for sketchy reasons. Here are a couple of articles. Note that with regard to Staten Island, north shore is code for minority and south shore is code for white.
[Gifted</a> Exam Scoring Flaws Are Uncovered - WSJ.com](<a href=“Gifted Exam Scoring Flaws Are Uncovered - WSJ”>Gifted Exam Scoring Flaws Are Uncovered - WSJ)</p>