Plight¹ of the preschoolers

学龄前儿童的困境

How do they beat the odds²?

他们如何克服的困难？

Competition for admission to the country's top private schools has always been tough, but this year Elisabeth Krents realized it had reached a new level. Her wake-up call came when a man called the Dalton School in Manhattan, where Krents is admissions director, and inquired about the age cutoff for their kindergarten program. After providing the information (they don't use an age cutoff), she asked about the age of his child. The man paused for an uncomfortably long time before answering. "Well, we don't have a child yet," he told Krents. "We're trying to figure out when to conceive a child so the birthday is not a problem."

想要进入国家最好的私立学校，竞争往往是非常激烈的，但是今年，伊丽莎白•克伦茨却意识到这种竞争已经达到了一个新的水平。克伦茨是曼哈顿多尔顿学校的招生办主任。她的叫醒电话刚响，她就接到一名男子打给学校的电话，询问有关孩子参加幼儿园课程的年龄限制。答复了他的询问后(他们没有年龄限制)，她问他的孩子有多大。这名男子局促不安地迟疑了好大一会儿才回答说，“噢，我们还没有孩子，”他对克伦茨说，“我们正在考虑什么时候要孩子好，以至于孩子的出生日期在入学时不会成为一个问题。”

School obsession³ is spreading from Manhattan to the rest of the country. Precise current data on private schools are unavailable, but interviews with representatives of independent and religious schools all told the same story: a glut⁴ of applicants⁵, higher rejection⁶ rates. "We have people calling us for spots two years down the road," said Marilyn Collins of the Seven Hills School in Cincinnati. "We have grandparents calling for pregnant daughters." Public-opinion poll after poll indicates that Americans' No. 1 concern is education. Now that the long economic boom has given parents more disposable income, many are turning to private schools, even at price tags of well over $10,000 a year. "We're getting applicants from a broader area, geographically⁷, than we ever have in the past," said Betsy Haugh of the Latin School of Chicago, which experienced a 20 percent increase in applications this year.

入学的困扰正在从曼哈顿传向全国各地。我们无法得到有关私立学校的确切的最新数据，但是采访私立学校和教会学校代表的情况表明，这些学校的情况都是一样的：入学申请者供过于求，落选率高居不下。“有人打电话来询问这两年的入学状况，” 辛辛那提市塞文西尔斯学校的玛里琳•柯林斯说，“我们还接到祖父母帮他们怀孕的女儿询问入学的电话。一次又一次的民意测验表明，美国人关心的头等大事是教育。由于长期的经济繁荣使父母有了更多的可支配的收入，即使私立学校的收费每年超过一万美元，很多父母还是选择私立学校。芝加哥拉丁语学校的贝特西•霍说：“申请者的生源地较之过去更为宽泛。”这所拉丁语学校今年申请入学的人比过去增长了20%。

The problem for the applicants is that while demand has increased, supply has not. "Every year, there are a few children who do not find places, but this year, for the first time that I know of, there are a significant number of children who don't have places," said Krents, who also heads a private-school admissions group in New York.

这些申请者所面临的问题是需求增加了，但供应却没有。还担任纽约私立学校录取小组组长的克伦茨说：“每年都有少数孩子找不到就读的学校，但今年，我第一次得知有相当一大批孩子无处就读。”

So what can parents do to give their 4-year-old an edge? Schools know there is no foolproof way to pick a class when children are so young. Many schools give preference to siblings⁸ or alumni children. Some use lotteries⁹. But most rely on a mix of subjective¹⁰ and objective measures: tests that at best identify developmental maturity¹¹ and cognitive¹² potential, interviews with parents and observation of applicants in classroom settings. They also want a diverse mix. Children may end up on a waiting list simply because their birthdays fall at the wrong time of year, or because too many applicants were boys.

那么家长怎样做才能使他们四岁的孩子出类拔萃呢？学校知道，没有绝对稳妥可靠的办法去为那么小的孩子们选择合适的班级的。许多学校往往优先招收兄弟姐妹或校友的孩子，还有一些学校使用抽奖的办法招生，但大多数学校还是用主观和客观结合的方法：进行考试，确定孩子的发育成熟程度和认知潜能；同学生家长面谈，或在教室观察孩子的反应能力。他们还要考虑其他多种混合因素。可能只是由于孩子的出生月份与上学的要求不符，或是申请者中男孩的比例太高等原因，有些孩子最终被列在继续等候的名单上。

The worst thing a parent can do is to pressure preschoolers to perform--for example, by pushing them to read or do math exercises before they're ready. Instead, the experts say, parents should take a breath and look for alternatives. Another year in preschool may be all that's needed. Parents, meanwhile, may need a more open mind about relatively¹³ unknown private schools--or about magnet schools in the public system. There's no sign of the private-school boom letting up. Dalton's spring tours, for early birds interested in the 2001-2002 school year, are filled. The wait list? Forget it. That's closed, too.

父母做的最不明智的事情就是强迫学龄前孩子去做一些事情—比如，当孩子还没有发育到一定程度时就逼迫他们去阅读或者做数学题。而专家表示，做父母的应该歇口气，放松放松，寻找其他的解决办法。在幼儿园再待上一年可能是最好的办法。同时，对于那些不太出名的私立学校—或者公立学校中那些有吸引力的学校，父母的眼界还要更扩大一些。没有迹象表明私立学校的迅速发展会使多尔顿学校停止其春季巡回招生工作，因为那些对2001-2002学年感兴趣的学校早已报满了。排队名单？算了吧。那也满了。