The Rochester school board has implemented more than a few controversial and contentious policies over the years. But its school choice policy is in a class of its own. While some people extol the policy, critics say that school choice is bureaucracy at its worst and that it, ironically, doesn’t guarantee that students will get […]
school choice
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Schools, neighborhoods,and the future of the city
Every once in a while, the topic of neighborhood schools comes up in Rochester. And while part of this stems from nostalgia, there’s also a fiscal argument. The Rochester school district spends a lot of money busing children to schools outside of their neighborhood. The reason: the district’s “school choice” system, which lets parents choose […]
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School choice is a slice of the education pie
The 30 or so children assembled in Rochester Prep Elementary School’s gymnasium are not students; they’re scholars in the charter school’s “believe it and you’ll be it” vernacular. At times, they jumped to attention, marched, and even stepped to a cheer in honor of the higher education institution their homeroom is named after, Howard University. […]
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The neighborhood schools tightrope
City school officials are grappling with a long-simmering problem: satisfying many parents’ desire for neighborhood schools, while not locking students into schools that are performing poorly. The Rochester school district currently operates under a school choice model in which schools are divided into three zones: northeast, northwest, and south. Parents select from the schools in […]
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No home-school guarantee for RCSD
Rochester schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas’s announcement last weekend that children who live within a half-mile of their neighborhood elementary school are guaranteed placement in that school — the “Home School Guarantee” — may have been misleading. The announcement comes with some conditions, and no new policy has been approved. | The district’s Parent Preference-Managed Choice […]
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Campaign barbs: Who’s a liberal?
It will not be a pretty campaign. President Bush is already seeing to that. And the people who analyze this stuff say the election will be decided by 8 to 10 percent of voters — the folks who haven’t already lined up ardently behind Bush or Kerry. The Bush money, and the Bush attack […]
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Reader feedback 2.25.04
Choosing a school in the neighborhood Regarding Christine Carrie Fien’s article on the school-choice policy (“Home-school Advantage,” February 4): Some parents in the School 46 neighborhood are seeking a guarantee that neighborhood kindergartners will be allowed to attend 46 if they want to. School Board member Rob Brown implies that those parents can only […]
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Home-school advantage: choice or segregation?
The best school for your children may not be the one within walking distance. Instead of being theoretically tied to their neighborhood school, city kindergarteners next school year will have a choice of several schools. The schools available to them depend on which zone they live in. The city school district has been divided […]
