New York, New York it’s a hell of a town. Or a hellish town if your kids go to public school because they have to apply for school when they reach middle and high school age.

Why you ask?

Because there are no neighborhood middle and high schools (i.e. no Park Slope High or Cobble Hill Middle School, etc) where you can just send your kids as you would in a suburban area. No, they’ve got to apply and then qualify (based on test scores, assessments, portfolios, auditions, etc) to get into a decent (and competitive) school.

New York, New York, isn’t it fun?

It wasn’t always this way. As one woman said today on the tour of the NYC iSchool. “I grew up in New York. When I was a kid you either went to your zoned school or you applied to Bronx Science, Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech…”

In my day we could also apply to Performing Arts (of Fame fame), Music and Art and Art and Design. Now there’s LaGuardia and many other art and/or science and math themed schools.

It was necessary to do this because if you lived in a good neighborhood you probably had a good school but if you lived in a poor neighborhood…

Change was necessary and choice is mostly a good thing. The problem is the complexity of the admissions process requires a lot of time, energy and smarts and those with less time and less money can’t always devote the time necessary to help their kids.

Truthfully, it’s a huge hassle for parents and kids to figure out which school to put on their list of twelve and that’s not even counting a separate list, which is for the “specialized” schools like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, Brooklyn Latin, and others…

So it’s a lot of tours. The guidance counselor at my daughter’s school said you don’t want to put any school on your list of 12 that you haven’t seen because you don’t want a big surprise if, god forbid, your child gets their 10th choice.

So that’s at least twelve tours and probably more.

This morning we visited the NYC iSchool. Lest you think it’s a school filled with iPhones and iBooks: it’s actually a collaboration between the Department of Education and Ciscso Systems. You can see a video about is here though I think the tour puts it in a better light than this video does.

Inside Schools, the go-to online information resource about the NYC public school system, had this to say about the NYC iSchool: “What’s Special: Imaginative and creative projects combined with computerized test prep. Downside: Rundown building with no gym.”

The good thing about no gym is that kids can do physical education as an independent study and being on a team, taking a yoga or dance class, jogging, biking, works for credit.

Suffice it to say, I was very impressed by this small, rigorous school that seems to be doing things in a very creative and innovative way while still being quite organized and rigorous.

But don’t take my word for it, take a tour.

Next week: Edward R. Murrow High School!