Battle of the Tiny Tots.(education America)(Brief Article)

A few months ago, an acquaintance called to ask if I'd put in a word for her daughter, whom I'd never met. "The thing is, it's such a major step in her educational career," the lady said apologetically. "I'm not sure she'll get in without help."

"I didn't realize you have a daughter who's old enough to go to college," I replied, gallantly.

"College?" She sounded genuinely horrified. "We're trying to get her into nursery school!"

The rat race starts young in America, where parents are increasingly convinced that success requires a degree from an Ivy League college, admission to which requires a top-notch high school, which you can't get into without a first-rate elementary school, which of course is impossible if you haven't been to the finest nursery school. Thus the competition at the best places for tiny tots has come to rival the cut- throat gamesmanship of shows like "Survivor."

I was reminded of this the other day by Manhattan's latest Wall Street scandal. It seems that Jack Grubman, a megastar telecommunications analyst at the Salomon Smith Barney unit of Citigroup, had been talking up the value of AT&T shares in the fall of 1999--even though it now appears he was privately dismissive of the company's prospects. His alleged motivation may partly have been to get his twin daughters into one of New York City's toniest nursery schools.

According to news reports, Grubman's generosity to AT&T (in upgrading his recommendation from a "hold" to a "buy") apparently prompted Citigroup chairman Sanford Weill, an AT&T director, to put in a few calls to the school, run by the cultural institution known as the 92nd Street Y. Citigroup also donated a million dollars to the school, but they and Weill deny that Grubman's research reports had anything to do with it. The twins, of course, got in. A few months thereafter, Grubman returned to his original dim view of AT&T stock, downgrading it once more.

Grubman's ethics are the subject of investigation. But what strikes me as more interesting are the strings he needed to pull to get his twins into nursery school. After all, at the time of their admission, coinciding with the high-tech boom, he was one of the most powerful men on the Street. His word could make or break fortunes. Yet that wasn't enough to get his kids into the preschool playroom of his choice.