Betting on the Lottery

Not powerball. More and more parents are forced to pin their hopes of their children's future on a charter school lottery.

John Stossel showed some footage of one of these on his TV special, "Stupid in America." I found it to be one of the singularly saddest things I have ever seen on television. People who cannot afford to move to another district or attend private schools show up for a government lottery to award the scarce seats in a public charter school.

The Wall Street Journal Ed page today suggests that New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver attend one of these lotteries. Silver opposes raising the caps that New York places on such schools.

The public charter school, which opened last year, is holding an admissions lottery at 6 p.m. to fill 105 kindergarten slots for next year from the 500 or so families who've applied for them. Harlem Success was founded by Eva Moskowitz, a reform-minded Democrat who formerly served as a New York City Councilwoman specializing in education issues.

In an interview this week, Ms. Moskowitz described the naked emotions on display at such lotteries, which are a common method for deciding who gets to attend these independently run public schools. "I thought I knew a lot about school choice and ed reform," she said. "But until I'd done the lottery last year I didn't understand the desperation.

"Unlike their middle-class counterparts who can use real estate to determine where their kid is going to school, my exclusively black and Latino parents' only option is to go through this process. And literally, people are praying and shaking and hoping to get into a school."

You lose the Colorado State Lottery, you're out a buck. You lose this lottery, you've lost a chance at getting a good education for your child. This is unconscionable.

Education Posted by jk at March 28, 2007 2:43 PM