Stories about parents camping out on streets overnight to get their children into a quality pre-kindergarten program are easy targets for the media. It’s not hard to get quotes from exhausted and annoyed adults who have slept outside for several nights in search of a coveted spot in a quality program for their progeny.

That's exactly what reporters for 11 HD News in Atlanta Atlanta Journal Constitution did last week. The photos really bring this story home.

The hope, desperation and anger on those Georgia sidewalks and in the campers and RV's parked nearby speaks volumes about the value of a solid educational beginning for young children and the need for a better system of signing up. In Atlanta, parents sign their kids up on a first-come first-serve basis for pre-k, and camping out to be first is an accepted practice.

Atlanta’s Superintendent of Schools Beverly Hall apparently disapproves of it and had sent out a letter schools discouraging it. But it came too late for the parents who had spent the night on the sidewalk to be the first on line, only to have police barricades blocking them from entering the school.

The process is an education itself. But is it the right kind of education?