Barry Schwartz wrote a book a couple years ago called The Tyranny of Choice. His central thesis: too many choices make us unhappy. Here's why:

• Increases the burden of gathering information to make a wise decision.
  
• Increases the likelihood that people will regret the decisions they make.
  
• Increases the likelihood that people will anticipate regretting the decision they make, with the result that they can't make a decision at all.
  
• Increases the feeling of missed opportunities, as people encounter the attractive features of one option after another that they are rejecting.
  
• Increases expectations about how good the chosen option should be. Since assessments of the quality of a choice are almost always made relative to one's expectations, as expectations rise, actual choices have a rising standard to meet if they are to produce satisfaction.
  
• Increases the chances that people will blame themselves when their choices fail to live up to expectations. After all, with so many options out there, there is really no excuse for a disappointing
choice.

Several months ago I made the long list, what to look for in a kindergarten. Then I had to go looking--the tyranny of choice in action.

We didn't look at private schools--the cost, putting our stated value "we believe in public education" into practice, fear we might not fit in with the private folk, wanting to live locally, no commute, not wanting to go through the testing, interview process, and probably most importantly for me, not believing that my child has such specialized needs that the public schools can't accommodate her.

I reserve the right to change my mind. Heck, I went to private kindergarten, high school and college.

But we didn't then just hop over to our neighborhood school. Seattle has a lottery system. You can apply to any school in the district; you just might end up with your fifth choice like what happened to my friend Michelle. (She's reading right now thinking would you just tell me which school you got!) The choice is further complicated because Seattle's schools range from fabulous to atrocious. There is no base competency they all meet.

One school we visited had a fabulous art teacher (paid for by the PTA). Another had Spanish classes (paid for by the PTA). In fact, comparing PTA budgets was a major part of the decision.

It came down to our neighborhood school and Miriam's neighborhood school:

brand new beautiful renovated building   old tired building

fabulous gym program                     fabulous gym program

fabulous art                             not so good art

mixed age classrooms                     mixed age classrooms

great diversity                          so/so diversity

good new principal                       no principal (in process)

fine library                             bad library (great new librarian)

low PTA budget                           medium PTA budget

good teaching                            outstanding Montessori teaching

good computers                           dreadful computers

kids being rude to each other            kids being really nice to each other

Even with the old building and unknown principal, we put Montessori first. We got it.

We are thrilled. Thrilled to have the decision over mostly. All that tyranny of choice stuff still floats around. Now, I went to Montessori for pre-school and kindergarten, I tried to get some books out of the library to see if it matched my values about education, and even though I'm throwing my kid in, I still don't get it. Can anyone recommend a basic "this is the Montessori philosophy, this is why, and this is what happens in a class" article?