Competition is in some ways good. But as a goal in education it is definitely anti-progress. We live in a changing world, heaven knows. A child raised to compete is being subjected to today's standards. What will things be like twenty years from now? What will that young adult's options actually be? Who can know?

The article in today's New York Times about people keeping their children back from kindergarten for a year so that they will have the advantage over their "peers" when they hit high school is a sign of this kind of thinking.