Hundreds of kindergartners, along with their adult minders, are expected to protest at City Hall next Wednesday over the fact that there aren’t enough spaces in the city’s strongest public schools to accommodate all of them. See, with the economic downturn, droves of upper and middle-class parents are opting against the city’s tony private schools, choosing instead to enroll their kids in public school until the recession ends, after which they’ll send them off to boarding school in ninth grade to save their chances at getting into an Ivy League school, because if they stay in public school but don’t get into Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, or Brooklyn Tech they won’t, and then their lives will basically be over. (When we typed that out we meant it as a joke, but we’re not entirely sure it’s not true, too.) The surge in applicants to plain old neighborhood public schools has resulted in kindergarten waiting lists, which are usually only things that happen at the kind of institutions where everyone has to wear a uniform and has a classmate named Vivian. This, of course, is making Manhattan parents crazy, because what’s the point of living in the West Village if you have to send your kids to the East Village for school? (Or worse … shudder … Noho.) Anyway, if you’re mad about this, too, you should go protest the mayor, who still has control of the city’s schools. Say hi to Vivian for us — though we hear she goes by Vicki now.
