Unless you've been wholly absorbed trussing your turkey, you have read of the recent flap concerning Sanford Weill's assistance to Jack Grubman in gaining admission of the latter's twin tykes to the 92nd Street Y's pre-school program in 2000. This ultra-exclusive Upper East Side pre-school program enrolls 175 youngsters and accepts just 65 annually. Zillions of New York City's movers and shakers want to send their daughters and sons there, however, as it is seen as a stepping stone to the city's elite primary and secondary schools and, these, in turn, are seen as paths to the Ivy League and success in life. So there is much jockeying, angling, finagling and influence peddling as wealthy, powerful parents who are accustomed to getting what they want work all their levers to maximize the prospects of their two, three and four year olds during the annual admissions frenzy.
Nearly all the coverage of this episode has focused on the business ethics of Messrs. Grubman and Weill and Citigroup, which Weill heads and which made a million-dollar gift to the Y, evidently in connection with the Grubman children's applications. For his part, Grubman, then a prominent analyst of telecommunications companies for Salomon Smith Barney, seems to have upgraded his rating of AT & T's stock. (Weill allegedly wanted this for an array of complex and questionable reasons.)
New York State's eager-beaver attorney general is all over this case, as is the Securities and Exchange Commission. Well and good. At a time of heightened sensitivity to business ethics - and concern about favoritism and corruption among securities analysts - that seems like the right thing to do. But everybody has ignored the education policy issues that this tawdry "bonfire of the vanities" episode reveals. Two of them struck me.
First, why is it that in New York City, as in Washington, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and many other cities, there is such intense competition to get into a handful of swanky private schools? Partly, no doubt, for reasons of snobbery. But much of it has to do with the simple fact that the public schools of those cities hold no allure. In fact, they're downright unacceptable to many families. The evidence need not be rehearsed here. Suffice it to note that people of means who care about their children will do practically anything to gain entry for their youngsters into different (safer, better) schools than those supported by their tax dollars. They could move to the suburbs, yes, and many do. Or they can stay in town and pull out all the stops to get their toddlers into those independent schools. (In principle, they could also patronize lesser private schools, where the admissions crush isn't quite so intense - they might even check out the local charter schools - but they're mostly too proud for that.)
They are, in fact, exercising school choice, and much of the reason they're so intent on it is because their cities' public schools don't cut the mustard. Now recall those same cities' tens of thousands of poor families whose kids are just as promising and who care just as much for them but who don't have influential friends and lots of money. What's their alternative? Think of Grubman's grubby saga as a high profile instance of the lengths people will go to to find acceptable alternatives to their neighborhood public school. Should we fix those neighborhood schools? Sure. The sooner the better. In the meantime, however, what about this year's crop of children? Next year's?
Second education issue: why won't the private schools grow? The 92nd Street Y, we read, won't even consider a child for admissions unless its parent is one of the first 300 to phone after the annual entrance sweepstakes opens (at 9 a.m. sharp on the Monday after Labor Day). Imagine all the speed dialers programmed to the school's number that morning, as it is widely believed that thousands of children would apply if the Y let them.
So why doesn't the Y expand? It charges as much as $14,400 a year in pre-school tuition and seems to find plenty of people willing to pay those prices. Why not serve more kids? Maybe even more kids whose families have the interest but lack the means? Don't be ridiculous, goes the response. Exclusive private schools would rather take one applicant in ten than educate more children. Part of their allure is their very exclusiveness, the hordes of youngsters they decline to educate rather than the relative handful that they choose to serve. They also lack the entrepreneurial spark. They are, in fact, complacent. So, in a way, are their clients.
Consider these two paragraphs from Jane Gross's November 15 account in The New York Times of the pre-school admissions sweepstakes in Gotham:
"The pressure to make exceptions can be intense for a nursery director," said Cynthia Bing, who heads the school advisory service at the Parents League of New York, an East Side institution that guides families through the independent school application process.
" 'All over town, are there cases of people calling the head of schools and saying "Pay attention"?,' she asked. 'Sure. And I'm not saying it never helps. But, if they allowed themselves to be pressured by everyone, they'd have to expand the schools to 10 times their size.' "
Ms. Bing takes for granted that expansion is a ridiculous idea, unthinkable, maybe even dreadful. But why? At ten times its size, the 92nd Street Y pre-school would enroll 1750 children. Properly organized and deftly administered, perhaps spread across several locations, that would be a perfectly manageable institution. It would give a top-notch early education to ten times as many youngsters as it does today.
Private schools don't think that way, however, and ought to be ashamed. As should the people responsible for public schools that so many families are desperate to escape. Nobody is exonerating Jack Grubman. But, like tens of thousands of other parents, when it came to his kids' schooling, he found himself caught between a rock and a hard place. Why do we persist with that sort of education system?
"Favoritism in Nursery School Entrance? No Comment," by Jane Gross, The New York Times, November 15, 2002
"The Pre-Kindergarten Connection," editorial, The New York Times, November 16, 2002
"Private Preschool Admissions: Grease and the City," by Stephanie Strom, The New York Times, November 16, 2002
