How Much is Too Much?

As I wander through the internet after my Russian class I came across a few articles. Both talk about Pre-School and Kindergarten, specifically about the prices for such schools.

In recent years there has been a huge push from the government and the private sector to focus more on early childhood development. If you look on the United States Department of Education website you will find "resources" to help you prepare your child for education starting from a few months old. There is a whole section of preparing your child for pre-school.

So this doesn't seem too bad, we are educating the youth at a young age. I agree. Education needs to start young and build those foundations for children. From there, kids can have a better start in the upper grades. I'm fine with that. It is when I see articles like those in the NY Times about pre-school kids getting "boot camps" to prepare themselves for the Kindergarten entrance test. Sessions can cost up to $80- $90. It follows the same idea as test prep for the SATs, just these test preps are geared for children under the age of 6.

One parent commented that it is worth the price because their child can get in to the public school's gifted program for kindergartens, which is essentially free to them because of those nice taxes. If they didn't get in, they could be looking at anywhere from $15,000-$20,000 for private schools in pre-school and kindergarten.

Really, those articles bother me. I feel like the public schools gifted program test is to find those gifted children at a young age who have had no testing experience. If we have a class of people paying for test prep sessions, we are isolating another class that can not afford it, and essentially may not be able to get their child into the gifted program. As well, the high prices of early childhood education limit children to a specific class, essentially the upper middle class and elite. I do approve of more focus on early childhood education. I think it is very important, and schools and parents play the factors in the equation on how it works out. However, high prices and competitiveness on such a young level seems ludicrous in my eyes.