Hey! Interesting point. I have always wondered how they would react when people who look white check off a minority status on a form. Besides your example of a white girl check this off to throw a wrench in the gears, I wonder if people have troubles with this?

Kudos on calling her 'boring', by the way - that is the most hilariously and murderously mundane thing to call someone. Bad names can be exciting to the people we throw them at (trolls IRL?!) but 'boring' is just... just terrific.

I don't know, she does live in Texas, and we've been having some pretty crazy Jez articles coming out of the Texas news lately.

People do scary, scary things when they think they've been wounded by affirmative action policies. It's so easy to blame disadvantaged groups (and the people who attempt to support them) instead of trying to figure out why you weren't good enough. Like Mark Lepine, who killed fourteen people because he thought he…

If you'd like some homework to broaden your understanding of mental illness, womanhood, and race, check out Woman on the Edge of Time. It's a gorgeously written feminist science fiction novel about a Hispanic woman in an insane asylum communicating with the future. I'm not sure what Marge Piercy's ethnicity is (she's…

There's Evelyn McHale, who jumped off the Empire State Building in 1947, leaving a strangely serene-looking corpse lying on top of a crushed limo. The Life magazine photo of her Sleeping Beauty-like corpse became an Andy Warhol print.

Aha! Yes. I think these are really good points.

Agreed. I'm sorry that you had to see it. :(

I was drawn to this article because I disagreed vehemently with the title. Thank you for convincing me - I was fully unaware of this cultural obsession with female suicides, but you (and the people you cite) have many, many good points.

Thanks! No worries - it didn't seem entirely like you were arguing preschools as useless, and totally explains why you didn't see their point, but I addressed it just in case. Thanks for clarifying!

I've never, ever heard of fundraising in my city for actual school-related things - the fundraising is all for trips, so yeah, I can see the kids of rich parents going on more (and fancier) trips, but I don't think that necessarily impacts the quality of the art program or how well the air conditioner works.

That makes sense. There's also the power of complaining - the city I live in doesn't really have that fundraising imbalance (as far as I'm aware of), but it's pretty clear that the schools in the rich areas have parents who petition whenever anything goes even slightly wrong, versus schools in poorer areas of the…

From the article, it sounded like the concern of the elite was the elementary school that it feeds into (so they're basically planning Harvard already), along with the social status of the toddlers your kid will be playing in the sandbox with. And probably the parents you'll meet at PTA meetings and the yearly picnic.

Actually, some private schools (with different learning philosophies) are better suited to kids who just aren't going to make it in academia. Like the Montessori philosophy is very tactile, free learning, helps kids with decision-making skills, time management, creativity, etc. Very well suited for kids with learning…

I think Doug intended to avoid this sort of criticism because he really only talked about public preschools, and then shifted to the ultra-elite, two groups that have absolutely zero overlap.

Well, that's the joy of statistics... they often don't apply to individual cases, but I dooon't think your examples (preschool = dropout! No preschool = scholarships!) indicates the relationship very well.

I think the general argument is that if rich people donated what they spend on tuition to public schools, these cuts wouldn't need to happen, hence more opportunity for everyone.

I'm confused here!

You're so right, but it's not just about the parents - also the social circle that comes along with elite education.

Does this happen? From the article I got two groups of people - those who go to public schools (and they're complainin' up a storm!), and those who go to elite private schools, far farrr up the economic ladder. I can't imagine people who want to pre-school with celebrity children ever considered public school?