Applying to preschool can feel almost as intimidating as applying to college. Our Editorial Director documents the process of choosing a preschool for her own daughter.
We're providing school choice and enrollment support to families affected by the closure of Mahalia Jackson Elementary School. Navigator Rameisha Johnson, a Mahalia Jackson parent herself, explains how we hope to help.
The truth is, making school choice work takes a lot of work. If you think you’ll see better results simply by setting parents free, get ready to be disappointed.
EdNavigator is a year old! To celebrate, we’re guest-blogging at Eduwonk all week, sharing observations and insights from our work helping New Orleans families give their kids a great education.
A New Orleans mom reflects on her experience trying to get her daughter into selective enrollment schools: "I’m a licensed social worker, so I’m used to dealing with paperwork and complex bureaucracies — but applying to schools was a whole different challenge."
When families have the ability to choose schools, do they flock to higher-performing schools? We took a closer look at kindergarten enrollment data in New Orleans to find out.
States could do more to try to present a holistic picture of each school that keeps the focus on academic performance but gives families insight into other key dimensions of school quality as well.
Instead of asking parents if they want their school to remain open, we should ask them whether they would choose to stay if they had other options. And give them real options.
In an era when, “How likely are you to refer us to a friend?” is a common question, why don’t we see more school systems routinely asking parents (and students) about their interactions with schools?
Even in New Orleans, which is ten years into its all-choice era, this is still hard work for families, schools, and administrators. There’s a real difference between “increasing school choice” as an abstract policy position and making school choice work in practice.
As parents, we all dream of a beautiful future for our kids. From the day they’re born, we pour our energy into building those dreams – with countless bedtime stories, with tooth-brushing practice, with impromptu lessons on playing nice at the park, with coats and sneakers and Halloween costumes, and a thousand other things. We want to give them big blue skies.