On May 26, 2010, at 4:49 PM, Alan Rudy wrote:
> Though, of course, I can't speak to the situation in NYC, my first
> sense is
> that it may not be a particularly representative locale... not if
> the fiscal
> crises and legislative responses in MI, NJ, and CA are any indication.
> There are still good schools (measured by how well students perform on
> standardized tests?) in all those places, yet as they get more and
> more cash
> strapped more and more of the elements universally assumed to be
> part of
> public education in the 1970s (at least in MI, NJ and CA) are lost -
> music
> programs, school libraries, art classes, field trips, and
> free-to-participate extracurriculars (much less all sorts of
> facilities and
> grounds maintenance), among many others.
In NYC a lot of that stuff depends on the parents' raising money for them. So the schools serving the better-off have lots of that stuff, and those serving the poor have bupkes.
Doug