There was another interesting NY Times article- it was about a reporter who moved his kids to Russia for 4 years (they are American and spoke no Russian) and enrolled them in Russian public school.
It was called "My family's experiment in extreme schooling" by Clifford Levy.
He describes how these schools in Russia post each week the results of exams for each child and their ranking compared to their classmates. They felt this ultra-competition was good. It's a very interesting article.
I read that, too. The kids had a wake-up call and it was tough the first few months, but they made it and then thrived. Another lesson here is that if you do move overseas, you have to immerse yourself in the culture. Hiding out in an enclave will just make it worse in the long run.
