(2012-04-16) Competition For Good Nyc Middle Schools

An article on the competition to get into the good NYC Middle School-s (Public School-s, Educating Kids In Nyc). Competition for top middle schools has intensified as more families choose to remain in the city and others find themselves unable to afford private schools, and performance on fourth- and fifth-grade standardized tests is crucial to getting into one of those schools. So many parents — some wealthy, some not — are now shelling out hundreds and even thousands of dollars for tutors and for courses like the eight-week Saturday morning boot camp in TriBeCa. And that is on top of test preparation that almost all elementary schools now provide in class.

The problem is that there's such a huge gap between the best schools and the rest.

GreatSchools rates 123 public middle schools in Manhattan:

• 10 get a 10
• 3 get a 9 (including NeST School)
• 7 get a 8
• 9 get a 7
• 9 get a 6 (yikes including Quest To Learn!)
• 6 get a 5
• 10 get a 4
• 16 get a 3
• 21 get a 2
• 14 get a 1
• 15 have no rating