No preschool for us.

Or, why I am resisting the serious temptation to send my 3 year old to preschool this fall.


She is wearing me down! Three is so hard. SO HARD. The random wailing with little to no communication as to why she she melting down. Outright defiance by coloring on every single wall in our (rented) house. Insistence that cannot do things that she certainly can do (and probably has done dozens, hundreds of times!) and insistence on doing things that she really can’t do (drain the noodles from the boiling water).

All. day. long.

It is starting to affect our ability to homeschool. Granted, we do not do much “school at home” but it is hard to do Ava’s reading lesson when Louise is kicking and screaming. We have had to push that lesson back to the evenings, after Dad gets home, which is not when I want to be doing reading lessons. (I know, I know: Me me me!)

And what does this have to do with commercialization?

I had applied to graduate school for next fall and as a back-up plan I also sent in a million (or forty) applications to preschools and elementary schools for Ava, Emma, and Eleanor. We went through the ringer with gifted and classical school testing as well. Good times!

Yesterday I received a piece of mail that was clearly not a bill.

An acceptance letter! (If you are familiar with Chicago, or most urban schools I suppose, you know how huge this is.) From a preschool!

From DISNEY MAGNET SCHOOL!

That’s right. Chicago has not one, but two Disney-sponsored elementary schools.

First off, I have never been to this school. I do not want to give the impression that there are Tinker Bell murals on every wall and Mickey Mouse videos playing at lunch time. There probably is not. I have friends whose children go here and they love it. Not surprisingly, the rumor is that they have good theater and animation programs.

The point is this: corporate sponsorship (of any kind) for public schools. Really? Puke.

When corporations have more money to give to public schools than the public government does, we have problems. Problems that go way beyond education. Problems with proper funding of schools and problems with early brand loyalty for children.

I am lucky to have the option of homeschooling. Every year, I can make a choice to do this, or not. But homeschooling is not the answer to our national education problem. The majority of American children will never be homeschooled. Not today, not in 100 years. Our economic system wouldn’t allow it, even if parents wanted to do it. We will always have a large number of impoverished citizens who will not have the privilege of choosing between homeschooling or employment. We will always have an elite class of people who can buy the best education for their children so that they can continue working in their careers. And we will (hopefully) always have a middle class of people like myself. Some of whom choose to forgo a career and the expenses that go along with it for homeschooling and some of whom fight very, very hard for quality public education, even if it means accepting money from Walt Disney.

So, I will not be registering Eleanor at Disney Magnet School, not matter its reputation and no matter how tiring her mood swings can be.

And don’t even get me started on the not-food served for school lunches.