Mom sues preschool for damaging 4 yo Ivy League chances

In summary: I doubt this one will.In summary, a Manhattan mom is suing a pricey preschool for dumping her "very smart" 4-year-old with tykes half her age and boring her with lessons about shapes and colors. She's demanding a refund of the $19,000 tuition and class-action status for other toddlers who weren't properly prepped for the standardized test that can mean the difference between Dalton and - gasp! - public school.
  • #1
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http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/03/14/2011-03-14_manhattan_mom_sues_19kyr_preschool_for_damaging_4yearold_daughters_ivy_league_ch.html

A Manhattan mom is suing a pricey preschool for dumping her "very smart" 4-year-old with tykes half her age and boring her with lessons about shapes and colors.

In court papers, Nicole Imprescia suggests York Avenue Preschool jeopardized little Lucia's chances of getting into an elite private school or, one day, the Ivy League.

She's demanding a refund of the $19,000 tuition and class-action status for other toddlers who weren't properly prepped for the standardized test that can mean the difference between Dalton and - gasp! - public school.

I think I prefer nuclear disasters, at least there is something that we can learn from them.
 
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  • #2
Moral of story: lawyers get to have all the fun.
 
  • #4
Wow... there is so much wrong with every aspect of this... I'm with Greg... it's time to weep.
 
  • #5
This is a great idea. When I went to nursery school, there was too much emphasis on sandbox and too little on singing the alphabet song and counting on fingers. Needless to say, I didn't go to an Ivy League school. Now I can finally get restitution.
 
  • #6
Jimmy Snyder said:
This is a great idea. When I went to nursery school, there was too much emphasis on sandbox and too little on singing the alphabet song and counting on fingers.
Not their fault. If only you'd made use of all that extra sandbox training and decided to major in Civil Engineering instead of Math!
 
  • #7
Uhm, who would pay $19000 for a pre-school? Seriously??
 
  • #8
micromass said:
Uhm, who would pay $19000 for a pre-school? Seriously??

Maybe it's all about the connections? The kid you fight on the playground today may be the opponent you fight in an electoral race 30 years down the road!
 
  • #9
if she paid for a service that wasn't rendered, then i don't have a problem with her getting a refund.
 
  • #10
micromass said:
Uhm, who would pay $19000 for a pre-school? Seriously??

Welcome to Western society.
 
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  • #11
micromass said:
Uhm, who would pay $19000 for a pre-school? Seriously??
Is that per semester? Is the pre-school at Middlebury College?
 
  • #12
There's a reason I prefer mathematics to people.
 
  • #13
turbo-1 said:
Is that per semester? Is the pre-school at Middlebury College?

I hear they have 2 nobel prize winners who teach the kids what sound a fire engine makes. That stuff doesn't come cheap.
 
  • #14
Pengwuino said:
I hear they have 2 nobel prize winners who teach the kids what sound a fire engine makes. That stuff doesn't come cheap.
Nor should it! You get what you pay for.
 
  • #15
19K... wow...

What an enormous waste of money, and an indicator of easting disorders to come. :rolleyes:

'Here honey, get in the pageant!' :yuck:

What is so wrong with letting kids be KIDS... life is going to catch up eventually, give them a damned childhood.

edit: They should sue if they DIDN't let the kid play in a sandbox.
 
  • #16
nismaratwork said:
19K... wow...

What an enormous waste of money, and an indicator of easting disorders to come. :rolleyes:

'Here honey, get in the pageant!' :yuck:

What is so wrong with letting kids be KIDS... life is going to catch up eventually, give them a damned childhood.

edit: They should sue if they DIDN't let the kid play in a sandbox.

before judging too harshly, consider that may actually be close to the going rate for daycare in NYC

http://www.costhelper.com/cost/child/child-day-care.html
 
  • #18
Proton Soup said:
before judging too harshly, consider that may actually be close to the going rate for daycare in NYC

http://www.costhelper.com/cost/child/child-day-care.html

That is actually the sad truth I think. Even in my city, which is no LA or Bay Area or Sacramento even, people can pay upwards of $10k/year for child care. What a scam.
 
  • #19
wow.. hilarious really
 
  • #20
And they wonder why no one really likes lawyers. :wink:
 
  • #21
Calrid said:
And they wonder why no one really likes lawyers. :wink:

Here I thought it was the lingering stench of brimstone...
 
  • #22
nismaratwork said:
Here I thought it was the lingering stench of brimstone...

Wasn't that why no one liked Bush, Oh no that was Just the Venezualan President Chavez. :smile:

Can't really say myself never met the devil. hehe
 
  • #23
Yes, I live in London and childcare here can easily be about £1000 a month(which I guess is about $1600) and frequently more (especially if you want them to do more than just look after your child), so I have no problem believing that someone has paid $19000 for one year in a good pre-school in NY.
So the lawsuit might (unfortunately) not be as stupid as it seems.
 
  • #24
f95toli said:
Yes, I live in London and childcare here can easily be about £1000 a month(which I guess is about $1600) and frequently more (especially if you want them to do more than just look after your child), so I have no problem believing that someone has paid $19000 for one year in a good pre-school in NY.
So the lawsuit might (unfortunately) not be as stupid as it seems.

True no law suit is stupid if you win. :wink:
 
  • #25
Calrid said:
True no law suit is stupid if you win. :wink:

Indeed, but I think my point was that quite a few people are assuming that the lawsuit is frivolous simply because of the $19K; but $19K is what you have to pay to get your kid into a good pre-school that prepares your kid for the tests you your kid will need to pass to get into a good school, then the amount seems more reasonable.

I should perhaps point out that I don't like the idea of testing kids at an early age, but at the same time I have a 10-year old at home who is currently preparing for his entrance exams later this year. We are very well aware of the fact that if he does not get into a good school, then this will seriously affect his chances of getting into a good university, so the stakes are high even though he is only 10yo.
Like it or not: education is becoming more and more competitive even for very young kids and I can see where the NY mum is coming from.
 
  • #26
There was a story a few years back about some mom killing a 3 year old who got into a preschool her child didn't, look it up yo.
 
  • #27
Ummm... since when did preschool become key to anything in life except how to stack blocks? I get k-*, but PRE-SCHOOL?!

I went to a rather good high school by national and international standards, and nobody I knew there, casually or personally attended this kind of pre-school. The whole deal seems like a big social club and status issue, not a practical advantage. If your kid is bright, great, if not... $19 MILLION USD won't fix that.
 
  • #28
The woman could have saved her $19K and hired a nanny from Latin America to watch her daughter, cook, do light cleaning, etc. After a year or so of that, the little girl could probably enter Kindergarten with a fluency in Spanish that the parents of other kids her age would envy.
 
  • #29
Proton Soup said:
before judging too harshly, consider that may actually be close to the going rate for daycare in NYC

http://www.costhelper.com/cost/child/child-day-care.html

Regardless of the cost of the school the, whole idea of suing any preschool for ruining ivy league chances is absurd. The mom is crazy and the lawyer representing her is brilliant! Hes going to make out big on this. Almost everyone else suffers. It's sad.

If physicists were as good as lawyers are at convincing people that their work was worth the money, we would have six space elevators and a particle accelerator circumnavigating the equator...
 
  • #30
nismaratwork said:
I went to a rather good high school by national and international standards, and nobody I knew there, casually or personally attended this kind of pre-school. The whole deal seems like a big social club and status issue, not a practical advantage. If your kid is bright, great, if not... $19 MILLION USD won't fix that.

I think it depends on where you live. I admitt I am not at all familiar with the situation in New York, but I would assume it is not much different from the situation in any major city. Here in London the differences between "normal" and "good" schools are significant, and there is a lot of competition. The problem has -from what I've been told- been getting worse over the past few years.

Fundamentally, it has to do with the fact that your chances of getting into a good university are much higher if you go to a good school (primarily because they do a better job at preparing you for the exams, the average grades are much higher at e.g. expensive private schools than in normal state schools). The reason why at maters at an early age is that good schools tend to recruit their students from other good schools: it is for example difficult to get into a good secondary school unless you went to a good primary school; which means that you first have to get into a good primary school etc.

Note that "good school" here means a school where most of the students succed in getting into a good school in the next stage; it does not mean that those schools are actually better at teaching their students maths etc. This is quite obvious when you look at the statistics: the majority of the students at the top universities here in the UK went to "good" schools (often expensive private schools), but the students who attended "normal" (or even "bad") state schools are more succesfull once they are actually studying at univeristy.

This latter agrees with my (limited) experience, where I work we accept summer students (usually 2nd year) from many different universities; I have on several occasions come across students from very good universities who where clearly not very bright (not stupid either, just not as bright as you would expect) and presumably attended schools who simply were good at prepapring them for exams; and I frequently come across students from less well-known universities who are really good.
The problem is of course that the student who went to the well-known university will have a huge advantage when he/she starts looking for work. So yes it does matter.
 
  • #31
OMG - you mean this woman wants the education she paid for? Of all the things... audacity embodied!

As far as letting kids be kids - I disagree. I think that it's time that our children get lost in science and mathematics instead of Cheetos and PlayStation. There is purpose in mathematics and fulfillment is there.

Rigorous education should start early and continue unimpeded. As an adult you become responsible for your own education, but you should be learning until the day you die.
 
  • #32
Jimmy Snyder said:
This is a great idea. When I went to nursery school, there was too much emphasis on sandbox and too little on singing the alphabet song and counting on fingers. Needless to say, I didn't go to an Ivy League school. Now I can finally get restitution.

My little girl just spent an hour in the sandbox with a physics phd... that be a physics girl phd to be precise. Does that guarantee she's going to an Ivy League? (I hope not, we can't afford it with this 19k+ "pay cut" I've taken to be a momma...).
 
  • #33
"Mom sues preschool for damaging 4 yo Ivy League chances"

Why it's enough to make Roddy McDowell want to shoot you in the face (0:56)...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOK4VRmBSjo&feature
 
  • #34
Hm, perhaps Mom hoped for

 
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  • #35
Knowing what I know now, I wish my parents had pushed me harder themselves and had paid for better opportunities for me. I am of course thankful for the chances I HAVE been given by my parents, but I was capable of much more than the public education I received. That's life and I'll make the best of it, but I could have risen to the challenge and accomplished more, more quickly, if given better opportunities.

I was told "Just do your best" - but I should have been told "Perfection is expected. Excellence will be tolerated."
 

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