› Kindergarten Admissions: Part Three

Kindergarten Admissions: Part Three

posted by Karen Quinn, The Testing Mom - January 22nd, 2016

We have covered religious (private) and private school choices for kindergarten admissions, but our search would be incomplete without this final day of public school choice.

As I said, there is no right answer to the question, “is private or public school better?”. There are advantages and disadvantages to either choice. Today I want to focus solely on public school choice.

Here are the advantages and disadvantages of public school choice for kindergarten:

Public School Advantages

It’s free! The money you save can be spent on summer camp, enrichment classes, and college;
Many public schools offer excellent gifted and talented programs with smaller class sizes and enhanced curriculum;
Parents willing to do the research and legwork will find excellent charter and magnet schools that their kids can attend;
There are more and a broader range of friends for your child to choose from; Classes are shuffled each year so your child isn’t stuck with the same small group of kids;
There is a widely diverse population – your child is exposed to rich, poor, smart, struggling students, high achievers, slackers, disabled children, multiple ethnicities, kids speaking different languages, practicing a variety of religions, coming from families with diverse values and support systems; Public schools emphasize inclusion and accepting all kinds of people; Kids emerge from public school with a more realistic view of the world;
In a good public school, the parents pitches in whenever there is a need, often creating a closely knit community;
In better districts, schools may have more choice of classes and better facilities than those offered by small, private schools;
Public schools are better equipped than private schools to recognize, diagnose and deal with learning disabilities. By law, they must offer extra help to kids with diagnosed learning issues – they cannot counsel them out as private schools can. Public schools must also meet the needs of physically disabled and other special needs kids.
Larger, better public schools offer in-house speech and occupational therapists, psychologists, and nurses. Private schools often don’t have these on staff;
You have to respect what public schools are trying to do with limited resources; there is a lot to be said about supporting your local public school;
If things don’t work out, you can switch to private later.

Public School Disadvantages

With so many budget cuts these days, classroom equipment, books, materials and facilities are often compromised; art, music and PE are often the first classes to go; At our local school district in NYC, parents had to supply everything from lined paper to toilet paper;
Teachers in public school must stick to government determined lesson plans; Unless your child is in a gifted program, magnet or charter school, kids learn the same curriculum at the same time at the same pace and in the same way;
There is an emphasis on subjects schools are rated on (reading and English); Creativity and a broader education are sacrificed;
Children are often tracked into slow, average and advanced groupings and that label may get perpetuated throughout their education;
Teachers are unionized so it is difficult to get rid of ineffective educators who have tenure;
Much classroom time is spent getting children ready for standardized testing; Many feel testing has become not just a way to measure student achievement, but an end to itself;
With large classes, kids do not get as much individualized attention; With No Child Left Behind requirements, teachers put their energy into pulling up the bottom 25% rather than challenging the top 25%; If you have an intellectually brighter child, he may not be challenged unless you can get him into a gifted program;
Schools often test for gifted programs at the kindergarten level; if your child misses that entry point, it can be almost impossible to get her admitted later;
If your child is having a problem, public schools are less likely to be flexible and fashion an individual solution; they often have a “if we do it for you, we have to do it for everybody” mentality;
There are more discipline issues in public school.

As with any major decision for your family, it is a very personal journey and should be approached with regard to what feels right for your child and family given your personal situation and values. And as I said before, I find that whatever parents choose, they usually end up feeling very good about where their child lands. And if it doesn’t work out, they move them.