Woman Sues Preschool for not Making Her 4-year-old Harvard Material

The New York Times reports today that a mother is suing an elite, high-priced preschool that she claims failed to prepare her 4-year-old daughter for a key intelligence test that pipelines preschoolers to New York's finest private schools and which, in turn, streams them, without missing a beat, into the Ivy League college of their choice.

The suit argues that since the quality of one's preschool helps to determine future success, any preschool that purports to prepare its students for this all-important IQ test and fails to do so, is negatively affecting the life chances of its pupils. Or, to quote the suit, "It is no secret that getting a child into the Ivy League starts in Nursery School," and further that "entry into a good nursery school guarantees more income than entry into an average school." The plaintiff contends that instead of preparing her daughter for the all-important IQ test, she was "dumped" into a class with a bunch of younger kids who just talked about shapes and colors. In effect, those shapes and colors were costing her daughter MONEY and now she wants it back.

So this is what we have come to, more in New York City than elsewhere, the land where life chances are determined by nursery school and where when nursery school fails us there is no recourse but to sue the culprits who think shapes and colors suffice in a world where only close reading and perfect spelling will do. I love New York, but please save me from these maniacs whose only meaningful computation comes down to:

Right Preschool >> Right Elite Elementary School >> Right Elite High School >> Right Ivy League School >> Wealth, Privilege and More Angst About Finding the Right Preschool for Their Overprivileged Children