Editor’s Note: This is part 1 of a 3-part Back to School series on “Challenges Facing Parents and Schools Today.”

Just getting in means nothing. The scary part is that parents are only focusing on how much money their kids are going to make, or what they need to attain a certain status.

In just three generations, schools in North America have undergone seismic shifts. I’m calculating this time period at about 70 years: the 20’s and 30’s when my parents went to school, the 50’s and 60’s when my husband and I went, and then the 80’s and 90’s of my kids’ generation (this is not counting their college years of 1999-2008).

One way our schools, public and private, have changed is competitiveness.

Two years ago a book called The Kindergarten Wars by Alan Eisenstock (Warner Books) was attracting attention as it highlighted four families where parents felt it was critical for their children’s success in life to get into the right private preschool or kindergarten.

The book starts, dramatically, with a woman, presumably a mother, grilling the director of a prestigious nursery school in an unnamed urban location. Does the school emphasize academics?” she asked. “What is the policy on watching TV?”

Finally, the director asked the woman to tell her some things about her child. The woman responded, “We don’t have one yet but we were thinking of trying soon.”

So, the competition or drive to have one’s child excel starts ridiculously early these days for some parents, even before they are in the womb. You can say, “Oh, I’m not gonna be that way” and sit out the early rounds of competition only to find out that if everyone else is playing the game, your child does indeed get left in the dust.

In Kindergarten Wars, Eisenstock documents that while all private schools evaluate prospective kindergartens to some degree, in New York City children were required to take an IQ-type test administered one-on-one by a professional examiner.

This type of education, if followed from K-12 can cost upwards of a half million dollars today. That is almost a moot point for these families, or a secondary consideration. 

The object of getting in to the best kindergarten or preschool for some parents is not in order to get the best education or for the enjoyment of their child, but in order for their children to get into the top colleges or universities and have the best chance to live financially successful or upper class lives.

Eisenstock discusses whether attending the top colleges assures success or happiness: of course not. One educational consultant interviewed for the book commented, “Just getting in means nothing. The scary part is that parents are only focusing on how much money their kids are going to make, or what they need to attain a certain status. They’re certainly not thinking of what will make their child happy.”

Of course, the problems in our public schools are one reason parents strive so hard to put their children in private schools, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is a problem when parents do it for the wrong, shallow reasons, and not for their child’s own happiness and fulfillment.

Some parents Eisenstock interviewed had considered, toured and interviewed at their local public schools. In better areas, many of the schools were just fine, “decent and acceptable.” But that wasn’t enough for these parents. In some areas, safety was a legitimate concern, as well as the fact that in some areas, as many as 50 percent of the children spoke English as a second language, and parents are fearful that their kids will not be challenged or overlooked.

This is not exactly the kind of classrooms my parents experienced. Or my husband and I. We’ll look at more educational challenges next time.

What do you think? Send comments to or post at www.thirdway.com/aw