Nursery University
“The nursery school admission process is a war zone” declares one consultant at the beginning of Nursery University and thus its filmmakers proceed to position themselves as correspondents on the front lines, following the case studies of five families seeking placement in exclusive private Manhattan preschools. The film is a fascinating, informative and, at times, infuriating look at the self-described cutthroat world that pits parents against parents, with the children caught in the crossfire.
Covering the full spectrum of candidates, from a rich Upper East Side couple looking to buy the most exclusive brand name they can find to a working class Harlem family seeking a better chance for success for their daughter, the film brings us along for every step of the ride from the initial meetings with consultants who can charge $4,000 or more to help parents apply to the final opening of the decision letters where parents learn if their toddler was good enough to make the cut.
It’s college admissions. But for two and three year olds.
The logic at the heart of this story is that the preschool is a lynchpin to open the gateway to the feeder school process. The “right” nursery school presumably gets your child into the right kindergarten which then opens the door to the right middle school, followed by the right high school and then finally, the right Ivy League college. The unspoken consequence of the “wrong” school puts your kid at a desk next to the poor, minority students that make up the unwashed, huddled masses of the public school system.
Quite appropriately, the film focuses on the parents and the admissions directors. For many schools, the children seem to be the secondary or even tertiary concern in the process behind finding parents with the right status and perpetuating the status of the school itself as an exclusive club. These preschools need to continue to be filled with rich kids, pre-ordained for greatness (defined as wealth), so that rich parents will keep coming back to beg for a seat at the table. And what mom doesn’t want to be able to brag that they were accepted to a school that even wait-listed Kate Winslet?
And this is not to say that the children don’t play a role in the process. They do get reviewed and assessed to make sure they are well behaved and developmentally advanced enough to not put too much of a strain on the staff. Since they have the power, why not take the students that will make life easier for them and make them look better in the long run? Why take on the kids who would actually benefit the most from the preparatory socialization and behavioral skills offered at preschool if it means dealing with issues or, even worse, parents who can’t afford it. This is politely referred to as looking for “a good match for the school”.
In a moment of frankness, one white mother states, “we’re not going to have him go to a public school in Harlem”. Well, what about all those children that actually do go to public schools in Harlem?
Nursery University’s main flaw, if it can be called that, just may be found in the dignified civility of its approach to the subject matter and its participants. Maintaining an unbiased approach, the documentary presents us with the facts for us to view and interpret on our own. And it certainly cannot be faulted for admirably maintaining it’s journalistic integrity but it also left more of the story to be told. What about those Harlem school kids? And those children in the feared public schools next door to the private schools?
The other side of the story is an indictment of a system that rescues the rich and abandons everyone else. Elitism should be a dirty word when it comes to the education of little children. Outside of this specific game in which these players found themselves competing, I suppose all these people are relevantly nice, decent members of society but their participation just perpetuates the process. With all the time, effort and money that goes into the application and selection process itself, one can only imagine what could be accomplished if all those resources were pointed toward fixing whatever is broken in the public school system so that all children could benefit. After all, it is supposed to be about the kids, right?
Perhaps the film’s directors, Marc H. Simon and Matthew Maker, are already working on a sequel that tackles this issue further. If so, it will be a welcomed addition to the discussion as, with Nursery University, they presented an intelligent and stylish report from the field.
“This is gonna be nasty. This is the one where the child had to be given a lollipop to cease and desist on her temper tantrum.” – Gabriella Rowe
If the story has a villain, it comes in the form of Gabriella Rowe, the Director of the elite Mandell School, one of the crown jewels in Manhattan’s private school system. At least for her time on camera, Rowe personifies a hypocritical approach to the issue, paying lip service to an it’s-all-about-the-kids and I-wish-I-could-accept-everyone approach while making parents jump through hoops and putting them through the ringer. In the course of the same sound byte, she calls the feeder school theory laughable and then perpetuates the hysteria which feeds her business by defending it’s “grain of truth”.
While reviewing applications and cutting those that don’t make it past the velvet rope, Rowe bemoans, “How many more investment bankers and lawyers can you fit in an application pool?”. Probably just enough to make sure that only one or two token blue-collar families get a seat in the classroom. One can only laugh at the irony as she offers disdain toward the parents who, in an effort to impress her in the process that is all about impressing her, make the faux pas of trying to impress her too much by using stationary from the David Letterman show for their essay. (We don’t know if their child was accepted but she did offer to give the parents the benefit of the doubt).
Another Director, Wendy Levey of the Epiphany Community Center tells a couple that the only children she puts on the wait list are the ones that she really wants. It certainly is a cutthroat business when so many toddlers get tossed aside, apparently unwanted by a preschool. And you can feel the simultaneous power-grab and desperate need for validation when she tells these parents to “call me once a day to register interest.” At this point it is obvious that the process has not been about the children for a long, long time.
Nursery University is a well crafted and highly entertaining documentary that opens up this unique and fascinating topic in an intimate but unobtrusive manner, putting us at the kitchen table as families dealt with the life or death issue of their children’s college educations, albeit 15 to 16 years ahead of their first day of class.
