New York’s 4-Year-Olds are mastering Zoom to get into elite NYC private school kindergartens, writes Amanda Gordon of Bloomberg. Gordon comprehensively covers the extreme lengths some parents are going to, including hiring test prep tutors and video editors, to help their children master private schools’ video requirements for kindergarten applicants. In 2020-2021, due to Covid restrictions, NYC private schools are in many cases requiring video-based testing (the T&E for about 30 schools, the FLI for Horace Mann and Riverdale), parent-submitted home videos (Trinity, Town, Nightingale) and in many cases, video child interviewing. It’s enough to make a parent and child’s head spin.
Whether 4- and 5-year-olds can be tested for anything has long been debated. “They keep wanting to test 4-year-olds and evaluate who is the smartest and most qualified, despite the fact that so many educators think that making a prediction about a 4-year-old’s future potential based on an exam is ludicrous,” said Emily Glickman, president of Abacus Guide Educational Consulting. “It’s a bad idea and especially this year. Plenty of 4-year-olds don’t like Zoom.”