How did Pokey, Nokey, and Cokey meet? Am I understanding correctly that they never all went to school together and they don't live very close to each other either?
They all went to school together for 5th grade. They don't live anywhere close to each other, though. They were in dual language together, which isn't at the elementary school we're zoned for.
Pokey and Nokey were always at the same elementary school. Cokey showed up last year and they all bonded.
(Modified OP to clarify that point.)
It's interesting to compare this to LB's point that neighborhood elementary schools in NYC are good schools and your kids will be fine. But the same thing is dramatically less true of high schools (less sure on middle schools) in NYC, where you have a lot of school choice and so the differences between the people who find other schools versus staying in the neighborhood widen a lot. (With all the usual things playing roles, which I hesitate to summarize as SES, because there's tons of low SES immigrant parents in NYC sending their kids to the competitive schools.)
This totally doesn't solve the social problem, which is real and lousy. For Nokey specifically, you think his mom could get him shifted to the honors track? "He just doesn't seem challenged?" It is a horrible system that having your parents bullshit like that can be life changing, but while it's the system that exists, talking your kid's friends through how to navigate it seems like all you can do immediately.
I think the "tons of low SES" immigrant students in the competitive schools is maybe a little less true than it looks if you consider pre-immigration SES. There's a lot of immigrant New Yorkers who had money and education back where they came from, took a big relative SES hit when they immigrated, and the family is rebounding to their pre-immigration level. That's not everyone, but it's a substantial chunk of people. But this is off-topic from the post.
I was thinking about that too - she is incredibly receptive to anything that Nokey's mom or I say, and was looking for advice to how to handle these things.
I just feel bad more broadly that there's such a stark "left behind" thing that happens.
I think the answer has to be that a binary is a terrible way to sort kids. Just like in everywhere else, you need a broad, strong middle group that is getting a solid education. You can't peel off the top 40-50%.
The Calabat's best friend has bounced around elementary schools (friends from preschool/kindergarten) before landing in the magnet program with the Calabat finally. It's been good for him - he's challenged academically and he's had a hard time making friends beyond the Calabat, who is both a social butterfly (very weird that my son is popular) and fiercely loyal to his old friend.
I'd tell Cokey's mom that she ought to see if Cokey can move into the honors track. Part of moving up SES is picking up on the know-how that the academic/UMC parents have. It's not a systemic solution but it will help Cokey.
11: Yes. Part of what's shitty about the NYC system is that there are a lot of pretty decent middle and high schools, probably enough for half or more of the students. You don't need to get into Stuyvesant to get a good education, you just need to work the process and get in somewhere. But the zoned schools where you end up if your parents don't know how to work the process are really not great, because everyone whose parents had the capability or the attention to manage the process have been skimmed out, and they serve a third or more of the students.
she is incredibly receptive to anything that Nokey's mom or I say
Tell her to convert to Judaism. I hear those kids do well in school.
Reached out to Cokey's mom, who said he's in two honors classes, and his problems are in PE and Spanish (I think.) In which case Pokey is in both those classes. So maybe Pokey is the problem.
At any rate, my analysis was probably too facile but I refuse to entertain any more depth.
But I'll also connect her with our mohel, Mokey.
I have been unwilling to actually verify this but I'm pretty sure I see the same thing happening already in Steady's second grade.
The school is one of the whitest in the district, which is well and truly not all that white. Maybe 40% white? You have to test into it in kindergarden. However, in second grade they get sorted into GATE and not-GATE (which is still the ones that got in by test in K.) I have the school pics, so I could look. But I bet the two GATE classrooms are much whiter than the two not-GATE classrooms. I'm bummed to think it.
Also, we got invited to a birthday party at a bouldering gym. Oh man. So much whiter, even again.
My high school seemed to be running a different educational experiment every year I was there. In the middle of my freshman year they abruptly got rid of "tracking" in some classes like social studies and maybe English? The difference at that grade level wasn't honors vs regular - honors/AP didn't come in until sophomore year - it was regular vs remedial. No preparation was done to ensure everyone was ready for the trackless future. It felt like all learning basically halted for everyone in the untracked classes.
At the same time, the school district had a real problem with tracking and discrimination, where very few black students went into the honors tracks and many had been put in remedial tracks before high school began. The district had the same proportion of black students as white students.
I debated mentioning the racial aspect here, too - Cokey is Hispanic.
The reason that I'd assumed that he wasn't in honors classes was that a bunch of kids were comparing schedules at back-to-school night, and Cokey hadn't had any classes with Pokey, but had several classes with a kid I consider to be kind of a dimwit that had been on Pokey's baseball team. So I just assumed that it was an honors/not honors schedule sorting thing. But now I feel bad for assuming that.
a kid I consider to be kind of a dimwit
I had a friend/debate partner like this in high school, who wasn't a dimwit, but just didn't come across as super smart. Turned out I just didn't have any math or science classes with him, because he wound up getting a PhD in physics and now runs a billion dollar company built around some algorithm he came up with. That's gotta be the widest gap between my assessment and real-world outcomes.
19: Same at the Calabat's magnet school -- partially by design. The program is housed at a school that is predominantly Hispanic/low income, and most of the students in the program are white/MC-UMC. The good move this year is that the magnet program no longer has an independent PTA, so the magnet parents are on the school's PTA, so the kids are more 'part of' the school. But it's really not optimal.
Knew a guy at MIT like that. Kind of a vague, dreamy affect, didn't say a lot of things more than three words long, if I hadn't been in classes with him I would have thought he was kind of dim. I would have been very, very wrong.
In light of recent revelations about Cokey's actual schedule, I'll pivot to a different point about middle school: while, IME, Kids These Days are much less shitty and lead-addled than we were, with the effect that middle school is less hellish than before, it's still a period where kids are experiencing all that change and trying on personalities etc. So I think you're still prone to local effects: maybe Cokey happens to be in classes with a couple more shitheads (including honors types) than PNokey are. I personally spent 7-9 grades figuring things out and occasionally being extremely shitty bc it seemed socially adept at the time. So maybe that's the porn kid at the back of the room--not somebody who'd be weeded out by tracking, just a kid who's being (temporarily?) shitty.
In ninth grade, there was a kid who used to pull his dick out of his pants when the teacher wasn't looking. He's dead now. Probably for unrelated reasons.
You all are being very kind to the dimwitted kid.
That's gotta be the widest gap between my assessment and real-world outcomes.
For me, it's you.
I won't be taking questions at this time.
Sorry. I'm still upset because we lost Tulsi Gabbard.
Now Tulsi is coming to New Hampshire to stump for our horrible MAGA Senate candidate. I'm shocked. Shocked I say!
I didn't know the neighbors even noticed:
I had a friend/debate partner like this in high school, who wasn't a dimwit, but just didn't come across as super smart. Turned out I just didn't have any math or science classes with him, because he wound up getting a PhD in physics and now runs a billion dollar company built around some algorithm he came up with. That's gotta be the widest gap between my assessment and real-world outcomes.
Time to reset the ol' mental-whateverness-ometer.
Ugh, I'm so worried about this. My oldest has done ok in the failing rural high school where we live because she was in all the honors classes, but my youngest has strong adhd and is not as smart, so she won't be in the honors classes, and the regular classes are rough--just really bad. There is no private school to send her to, and the other, better school in the county didn't have open enrollment this year. We would have to move to where I would have a 35 minute commute to improve her school. I just don't know what the best thing will be
Ugh, I'm so worried about this. My oldest has done ok in the failing rural high school where we live because she was in all the honors classes, but my youngest has strong adhd and is not as smart, so she won't be in the honors classes, and the regular classes are rough--just really bad. There is no private school to send her to, and the other, better school in the county didn't have open enrollment this year. We would have to move to where I would have a 35 minute commute to improve her school. I just don't know what the best thing will be
38: I don't have advice other than this utterly unhelpful comment (online tutoring service maybe?), but: apparently this is how I learn that not only do I live in fear of my parents coming right out and saying that I'm not as smart as my sister, but I also live in fear of them saying that she's not as smart as me, because I feel viscerally that it could just as well have gone the other way. Why am I so invested, at age 43, in this myth of infinite plasticity? Not normal, right?
41: I still don't get it. But I have finished Mort.
Aaaaand now a saying-the-quiet-part-loud moment from NYC Schools Chancellor (excerpt is from nonprofit news site Chalkbeat):
In the wake of his decision to double down on selective admissions, New York City schools Chancellor David Banks offered a blunt argument in favor of that approach [...]
Speaking in front of corporate, nonprofit, and education leaders at a forum hosted by the Association for a Better New York, Banks said: "We made a decision, after hearing all the arguments, that merit really should matter."
"If you've got a child who works really hard on weekends, and putting in their time and energy and they get a 98 average -- they should have a better opportunity to get into a high-choice school, then, you know, the child you have to throw water on their face to get them to go to school every day."
Banks added that "all children are valuable," but "if you have a child, who you've noticed putting that extra effort, they ought to have that opportunity."
Charming.