Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Most conflicted "contrarian" story of the week

Slate likes to zag where other publications zig -- but sometimes contrarianism can just tie you up in knots.

Follow the shifting impulses and arguments in this piece on the admissions processes at elite private pre-schools. First comes the pre-emptive strike against the conventional wisdom: "It's March, which means it's time for a spate of stories about the high comedy of preschool admissions ... In the press (and on the playground), the selective schools are the villains, and parents either the laughing stocks or the victims. The underlying assumption is that sorting small children comes down to judgments about their behavior that are wildly mercurial."

That sets up the contrarian take: Schools actually know what they are doing when they reject your youngster. Zounds (he says, as the father of a two-year-old). This striking claim is surely what sent this story shooting up the list of Slate's most-forwarded pieces.

But the caveats in the story, proliferating like bruises on a playground, undermine the thesis: In fact, the story says, kids do get arbitrarily rejected because they didn't share their shovel in the sandbox (not unheard of even among well-adjusted kids at this age); often, of course, the children of donors have pride of place in the process; some of the best pre-schools in the world view admissions screening as antithetical to the whole point of educating pre-schoolers; accomplished adults aren't necessarily sharers at age 2.

What's left in the end? Another amusing piece in, yes, "the press" on the high comedy of pre-school admissions.

Posted by Christopher Shea at 10:40 AM

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