Everyone in New York City lives near a really good school.  Just ask them.

The good school lie is second only to the one where people insist that their house is only a 20 minute commute from Manhattan.  No, really!

Oh please.

If everyone lives near a “good school” (and is there really such a thing?)  in New York City, then why are there so many bad ones?

Today I met a NYC middle school teacher who two weeks ago pulled her son out of school.   She and her husband plan to homeschool him.

You know there’s a problem when teachers prefer their own children don’t go to school.

She also told us that many of the schools that we’d been told were ‘good’, were in fact awful.  “It’s all a bunch of lies” were her exact words.   One school in particular, which a friend of ours now attends, made her shake her head.  “They clean everything up for tours, tell the kids they can’t leave the classrooms and every single thing they show prospective students and parents is a lie.”

Wow.   Even I, who am under no illusions about the defects of compulsory education, was stunned by her bluntness.   Her son’s teacher, when pressed for a reason that her son doesn’t enjoy Math, finally said, “Because the math curriculum sucks.  The kids hate it, the teachers hate it, but we are forced to use it.”

Of course, I’m sure that’s not the case at the school your child attends.    Just like I’m sure your commute really is 20 minutes door to door.

I think it’s time we wake up.  Face the music.  Stop the lies.  Schools, as Wendy Priesnitz said, are the failed experiment.    Just ask the middle school teacher now homeschooling her son.