NYC school choice; various updates

The NYC high school choice process (for schools at all levels) is entering its late stages. On the high school front, although the large majority of students are matched to high schools they ranked highly on their preference lists, in a system the size of NYC (with approx 90,000 new high school students each year), there are many students who are not well matched (and for whom the upcoming appeals process may provide some relief).
The Daily News has a story featuring several such students: Education Department fails to place thousands of students in any high school on their list of picksRead more: Education Department fails to place thousands of students in any high school on their list of picks.
"Education Department spokesman Andrew Jacob said the percentage of eighth-graders who went unmatched has improved to 9% from 16% in 2004, when choice was implemented.
The number of students who got their first choice has improved to 51% from 34% since the same year, Jacob added.
"We want all of the 86,000 students who applied for high school to be able to attend a school that's right for them," he said. "Any student who's unhappy at the end of the second round can appeal it."

The problem is that the system is stretched to capacity, so that schools with excess capacity are those which are undesirable in some respects. The things that market designers know about the difficult problems of school choice don't fix this underlying problem of resources.

The NYCDOE provides a bit of information on the different kinds of high schools here, a very brief description of the admissions process here, and information about each high school here.
There are also brief descriptions of the very different, still decentralized processes for pre-kindergaten, elementary schools, and middle schools.