NY Real Estate Bust Spells School Waiting Lists

Before you start worrying about college waiting lists, you can prepare by worrying about your kid landing on the waiting list for the local public elementary school -- if you live in New York City, that is.

Thanks to the real estate boom and bust, the little red school house around the corner -- in the neighborhood you set your sights on because it had a good public school -- can no longer guarantee a seat for your child, the New York Times reports. For the second year running, the paper says, hundreds of families are now on waiting lists for elementary schools in their own neighborhoods.

What can distraught parents do? Well, there's going to be a lottery.