Kakusa
The Pumpkin Princess wants to go to a very selective school. Even though it's a public school, the acceptance (based on transcripts and an exam and an interview and an essay) rate is something like 20% for girls. We can afford to send her to the test prep courses she needs to have a remote chance at getting in, plus, the courses are fun and interesting, so, why not, right? And if she doesn't get in, the local JHS isn't exactly a dump. (O.K., it was where I went during my Year of Requirement so maybe it is a dump...) She can work on getting into a high school that she likes. It'll work out either way.
But when you go to the school's Open House, you can tell that the kids and their parents are a lot better off than average. And then it hits you that rich kids are getting an education funded by taxes paid by, well, people who are less rich.
And then you feel kind of dirty for sending your kid to the test prep classes, which you can afford, but only because you're a little better off than most to the parents of the kids in your daughter's class. But on the other hand, am I allowed to tell my daughter she's not allowed to go to these test prep courses and study hard and try to get into a school she wants to get into because it goes against my left-of-center worldview?
1 comment:
Yeah. This is hard. For all that the school choice system here is crap, the public selective schools at least have to admit certain percentages based on a tiered system (mostly by income but not entirely). They have their own problems though and we're not going to make a point of considering them.
And we took advantage of the lottery system to get our kids into a school with more resources, rather than the neighborhood school. But a big part of that was the availability of after-school care on site.
It's a mess either way.
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