It is sad fact of life that in a time of economic crisis, as states are scaling back on promised expansions of publicly funded pre-kindergarten, that a few upscale Washington D.C. parents are whining.

In some ways, it's even sadder that their concerns have become a story, but indeed they provide a window into the unfounded fears that may accompany thinking about education.

And why are these parents whining, according to the Washington Post? It seems that a blog posting about the new academic focus in kindergarten set off waves of fear about how prepared their offspring might be, according to the Post's Valerie Strauss.

Strauss writes that parents have been begging school directors to let their 1 1/2 -year-olds into programs for 2-year-olds. In interviews with a few dozen preschool directors, Strauss learned that parents have been, among other things, demanding to know why their 2-year-old isn't being given the alphabet to copy over and memorize and enrolling their 3-year-olds in so many activities "that the kids are falling asleep on their preschool desks.''

Why all this anxiety? "Unknowing parents see their kids playing at a water table and think they are wasting their time,'' Strauss notes.

To her credit, she notes that there is an enormous amount of research showing that play has great developmental benefits.

In this case, it seems like the pre-school directors need to do some educating of parents. Several told Strauss they were afraid of offending them. As educators, they need to be clear about how and why play matters, and if they don't explain and defend the value of play, they might as well just start assigning homework to two-year-olds.