Brooklyn Tutor

This week’s 8th most emailed Times story (maybe you’ve seen it?) examined preparation of pre-schoolers for the admissions tests (the OLSAT and Bracken School Readiness Assessment) to public gifted & talented kindergarten programs. Most interesting (to me) is the difference between private and public kindergarten admissions practices, at the heart of which is, as always, the question of access:

“Private schools warn that they will look negatively on children they suspect of being prepped for the tests they use to select students, like the Educational Records Bureau exam, or E.R.B., even though parents and admissions officers say it quietly takes place…No similar message, however, has come from the public schools. In fact, the city distributes 16 Olsat practice questions to ‘level the playing field,’ said Anna Commitante, the head of gifted and talented programs for the city’s Department of Education.”

Fair enough. Spreading the SAT prep around is crucial (although not sufficient) for equal college access, so it makes sense to let everyone prep for the kindergarten exam. But Teachers College professor James Borland says the test itself causes major inequities in gifted admissions. And Leonie Haimson at the NYC Public School Parents blog, agreeing with Boreland, is sick of the Times’s “obsession” with gifted programs.

For more (Manhattan-centric) insight into kindergarten admissions, check out this awesome but completely horrifying documentary.