Pre K screw- up; but don't worry -- it only affects current public school parents!

Lots of news on DOE's mismanagement of the preK application process, which Tweed insisted on taking complete control of this year. Despite the headline on the NY Times, it's not that the process was "confusing to parents," it is that the DOE and their private contractor in Penn. screwed up by not honoring their agreement to give sibling preferences – so much so that many parents who have already have a child in the system got no preK placement at all.

Parents of the 20,000 children who applied for 23,000 pre-kindergarten slots began receiving letters over the weekend from the Department of Education regarding their child's placement. Many of those letters informed parents that none of the schools they had chosen were available, Ms. Gotbaum said, even in cases where there was no obvious reason for the rejection. For instance, she said, children were rejected from programs where their older siblings are enrolled, although the new process is supposed to give them priority…

In January, Mr. Klein announced that he was scrapping the patchwork of pre-kindergarten enrollment procedures, calling them "confusing, unfair and difficult to navigate," and said he would replace them with a "single, simple, fair process."

Rather than submitting applications to a single school as they had done in the past, parents this year were required to submit a single application, which was sent to a data processing center in Willow Brook, Pa.

But as the DOE spokesperson said, "the problem appeared to be affecting only families who had a child enrolled in a public school."

So obviously this is a minor problem – clearly public school parents must be used to being unfairly treated; or if they aren't by now, they should get used to it fast!

Once again, the total incompetence of this administration to get anything right cannot be underestimated.

For more on this, see the Daily News, the NY Post and especially the inside schools blog -- in which the DOE is actually trying to get away with blaming parents for filling out the forms incorrectly!