At that time there was still no alternative secondary-education program, yet it was (and remains) precisely this stage of mainstream education--in the middle of which students take the intensely competitive high school examinations--that many parents and children feared most. Some families have gone so far as to emigrate to spare their kids, while others have sent their children overseas on their own. Thus Cheng decided to found an experimental middle school.
當時體制外教育仍缺中學部份，而台灣教育制度中，高中聯考的競爭最為激烈，體制內的國中教育，正是最令家長、孩子感到害怕緊張的階段，不少家庭因此移民出走；有的孩子甚至隻身放洋，成了小留學生，於是程延平決定投身興辦森林中學。