Preschool insanity

I feel compelled to followup on my rant earlier this week ("Kitty Couture: Money Down the Drain") by a reader reminding me that a preschool enrollment race is underway. This is especially true in New York City where 3 year-olds face heavy competition to be accepted at preschools with an annual tuition as high as $30,440. Forbes recently did a piece on the most expensive preschools in America.

It isn't the tuition that bothers me. Infinite money entitles people to whatever expenditures they choose. I don't care that by comparison to the Ethical Culture/Fieldston School rate, the preschool at New York City's prestigious Horace Mann is a more affordable...$26,880. I don't even care - although it is mystifying - that in a 2002 scandal, Smith Barney investment analyst Jack Grubman appeared to have raised the rating of a stock important to Citigroup just as the Citigroup CEO was putting in a good word for Grubman's twins at the prestigious 92ND Street Y Nursery School.

Grubman?