Education: Playgrounds or Teachers?

On the southwest fringe of congested Harlem, New York City's Public School 113 has a 33,600-sq.-ft. playground, a modest enough open space for 1.150 children through sixth grade. Last week the board of education cut the playground by more than 10%. Instead of being filled with children next fall, 3,600-sq.-ft. of the playground will be used by teachers to park ten cars. The experiment—which may spread throughout the city—is founded on the notion that teachers will not work in car-choked New York City unless they can steam up to the school in a car (rather than by bus or subway) and...