Moms sues preschool for not prepping 4yo for Ivy league

Tracey - posted on 03/17/2011

I work with 6 - 7 year olds and half of them don't know all their shapes yet, if her kid was learning that at 4 then the class sounds pretty advanced. We have been advised not to start teaching too early as the children don't progress as well later on (according to some government study) we have been advised to use play based learning until they are about 6.

Reminds me of when I had my baby and the mum next to me had bought her 12 hour old newborn educational toys because it was never too young to start learning. The midwife told her that babies shit and sleep - what did she expect him to do - recite Shakespeare?

Becky - posted on 03/16/2011

Well, my sister pays $1700.00 a year to send her son to preschool (I think that's what it is), so if I was paying 19 grand, I'd expect a heck of a lot out of the preschool too! That is an insane amount of money! I don't think she was giving the school a fair shot by pulling her child out after only 3 weeks.
She's probably going to spend more money on the lawsuit than she'd get back anyway!
Nutty, nutty nuts!

Kate CP - posted on 03/16/2011

I'm going to second Jenn Morris here: Crazy. Or rather, cray-zay-hay!

Jenn - posted on 03/16/2011

One word: crazy.

Jodi - posted on 03/16/2011

Goog God, some people need to get a freaking life and not live it through their kids......

Esther - posted on 03/16/2011

Well, this woman lived in NYC and $19K in NYC isn't extra-ordinary by any means. I live in that area too and I actually pay more for my son's daycare/preschool (the price goes down slightly by Kindergarten but it would still be more than the $19K per year). It isn't anything "elite" and my son's daycare does not make any Ivy league claims (nor did I pick it for any of those reasons). But that kind of money is just what you pay in this area. I looked at about 6 different daycares/preschools and they were all in that pricerange. Of course people also make more money than they might in other states, but I'd say the purchasing power is probably about similar.

I haven't read or heard too much about this, but from what I understood when they were discussing it on CNN this morning, the mother specifically chose this particular preschool because they advertised that they helped prepare kids to take the tests required to get into some of the top elementary schools in the country, which in turn help their students get into the top middle & high schools and that does improve your odds of getting into top colleges. Here's the CNN video on it:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoft...

Now, whether putting this much pressure on kids and having them forced to learn so much so early on is a good idea is a separate matter. I think letting kids be kids is probably a better thing. But the mom may very well legally have a case.

Michele - posted on 03/16/2011

http://www.slate.com/id/2288402/
New research shows why teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire.

Michele - posted on 03/16/2011

It also seems that she prepaid. WTH? I can see not getting all of it back, but I would think that some makes sense. Of course, the non-refundable part would be in the contract she must have signed, so she is SOL, legally, I imagine.
Maybe she should have homeschooled for preschool.

Nikkole - posted on 03/16/2011

I think some people take things WAY to far, I would NEVER pay that much for ANY school unless its college and just 3 weeks come on the kid is 4 and its the parents responsibility to make sure our kids know most things or at least are trying to teach them before school its not 100% the schools responsibility i think this women is nuts!!