Leaving the City for the Schools, and Regretting It

Even the "best" suburban schools aren't immune to the rot infecting our public schools -- this is ultimately a good thing, as genuine reform of the entire system is far more likely with the support of these affluent parents.

Mimi and Gol Ophir left behind their Riverside Drive apartment with views of the Hudson a decade ago to move to the Westchester suburbs, reluctantly trading comfort and convenience for what they believed would be better public schools for their growing family.

 

Only the suburban bargain the Ophirs thought they were getting turned out to be no bargain at all. They chose the Yorktown school system, a relatively well-off district whose students consistently outscore their peers on state tests. But the Ophirs came to view the schools as uninspiring and unresponsive, and now they pay $51,000 a year for their children, 11-year-old Dylan and 9-year-old Sabrina, to attend the private Hackley School here — on top of $23,000 annually in property taxes.

“That’s the whole point of moving to Westchester: you pay the high taxes, but you get the good schools,” Mrs. Ophir, 43, a full-time mother who formerly worked as a lawyer, said with anger and frustration. “That’s the tradeoff, I thought.”

Like the Ophirs, many New Yorkers with the means to do so flee the city when they have children, seeing the suburbs as a way to stay committed to public education without compromising their standards for safety and academics.

Yet a small but growing number of such parents are abandoning even some of the top-performing public schools in the region. In school districts like Scarsdale, N.Y., and Montclair, N.J., where high test scores and college admission rates have built national reputations and propelled real estate prices upward, these demanding families say they were disappointed by classes that were too crowded, bare-bones arts and sports programs, and an emphasis on standardized testing rather than creative teaching.

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Leaving the City for the Schools, and Regretting It

By WINNIE HU

Published: November 13, 2006

www.nytimes.com/2006/11/13/nyregion/13private.html

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. — Mimi and Gol Ophir left behind their Riverside Drive apartment with views of the Hudson a decade ago to move to the Westchester suburbs, reluctantly trading comfort and convenience for what they believed would be better public schools for their growing family.