What’s actually good for kids?

The March 21 Insight article “The Miseducation of America’s Elites,” by Bari Weiss, who knows something about ostracism, leaves no doubt that the obsession by many of America’s achievers to get their children into prestigious universities has perverted education from top to bottom. That obsession is the real problem, and we have seen it for decades in Pittsburgh’s more affluent suburbs. As Rep. Dan Crenshaw, RTexas, would say, parents need to “calm down” and reassess what is really good for their kids.

Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, in reviewing “Fifty Successful Harvard Application Essays,” describes it as “a shameless effort to cash in on the anxieties of … students desperate to gain admission to the Xanadu of undergraduate colleges” and then notes an “education at Harvard is notoriously thin gruel, but the advantages of a Harvard pedigree are inestimable.” He concludes by recommending the book to “anyone who enjoys artfully crafted short fiction.”

Increasingly, a degree from a highly competitive university that has not yet outlived its prestige is prima facie evidence of indoctrination and suppression of independent thought. And admission criteria at such schools that discriminate against Asian Americans may soon persuade many bright, hardworking applicants that a real education is up to the individual and can be had almost anywhere. Parents, get your kids Ben Franklin’s or U.S. Grant’s autobiography: It may be the only real American history they read. Or, remind them that Abe Lincoln’s achievements did not derive from networking at a university.

WILLIAM L. KRAYER Scott