School Frenzy: What Are We Missing Here?

Around this time every year, the L.A. Times does a big story about the frantic last-minute frenzy among Angeleno parents to get their kid in a proper school; this year, it's also the basis of a story line on "Entourage."

An excerpt from the Times story:

By law, every child is ensured a spot in a public school. But for this mass of families, the neighborhood school typically is not the preferred choice.

The Los Angeles school district's magnet office tries to help. So does its open enrollment office. A call to a school — public or private — can uncover unexpected openings; informal parent networks also accumulate information. Parents often find that the local public school is better than first presumed, or has a special and worthy program within the larger campus that they can settle on.

Then there are parents who lie to get into a school, which can backfire if a school investigates.

"It was really difficult when my daughter didn't get a sibling permit" for an in-demand Westside school, said Kerry Allen. "Because I know families who used false addresses."

Other parents have worn out shoe leather, spent evenings poring over test scores and attended lotteries.

Debra, who lives in North Hollywood, visited seven public schools in recent months. Like other parents in limbo, Debra asked that her last name not be used, for fear that publicity could hurt her son's chances of getting into a school.

She had started at her neighborhood campus, where, she said she was told there was no advanced curriculum for her entering kindergartner, who can read.

So she turned elsewhere. Her son sits more than 100 deep on the waiting list at Sherman Oaks Elementary. At the Community Magnet, just west of the Bel-Air Country Club, he is so far down that "they said there's not really a chance."...

Debra's other favored options, at this point, are two private schools; each would cost about $20,000 a year. She's not sure she can afford that on her husband's salary as a stuntman. She once ran a modeling agency but currently works part-time.

There's also a desperate back-up plan: Rent out the family's North Hollywood house and move to a Malibu trailer park to qualify for schools there. But the seller wants $400,000 for the trailer, and hookups are at least $2,000 more a month, she said.

What??? Spending $20,000 a year on a kindergarten class? The paper goes on to mention the booming "educational consultant" business, in which parents hire an outsider to investigate what's going on inside the schools, and whether or not they've been blacklisted. (Yup, blacklisting really happens.)

Am I crazy? Am I doing Blogger Toddler a disservice by not getting caught up in all of this craziness? The elementary school close to our house is far from perfect, and is even lower-performing than other schools in the area. But I'm not losing sleep over it. I grew up attending mostly average public schools (ranging from a strong DOD elementary school to a rather weak high school), but managed to make the best of it all and turn out fine. Is too much made in L.A. of demanding the best school, no questions asked?

(Flickr pic by Confuzn.)