Universal pre-K for American children: why are we not doing this?

[Direckshun]

We have extensive evidence that pre-K education programs make a huge difference in the early learning trajectories of children (David Brooks accurately cites the the Perry and Abecedarian projects as stunning successes). There's evidence that it could reduce poverty and increase the most important aspect of America: social mobility. Social mobility is why America is America -- and universal pre-K helps make that possible.

Head Start has had a difficult time showing the same kind of successes, but many states have supplemented and refined it to actually produce effective results. The Obama administration's plan is to enhance these state improvements by providing funding, and measuring their results -- in other words, it's a perfectly federalist solution. States do all the work, the federal government measures their success and buttresses their efforts financially.

The key: score some incremental improvement through state experimentation. That improvement early in life becomes a key advantage later in life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/op....html?hp&_r=1&

When Families Fail
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: February 14, 2013

Today millions of American children grow up in homes where they don’t learn the skills they need to succeed in life. Their vocabularies are tiny. They can’t regulate their emotions. When they get to kindergarten they’ve never been read a book, so they don’t know the difference between the front cover and the back cover.

But, starting a few decades ago, we learned that preschool intervention programs could help. The efforts were small and expensive, but early childhood programs like the Perry and Abecedarian projects made big differences in kids’ lives. The success of these programs set off a lot of rhapsodic writing, including by me, about the importance of early childhood education. If government could step in and provide quality preschool, then we could reduce poverty and increase social mobility.

But this problem, like most social problems, is hard. The big federal early childhood program, Head Start, has been chugging along since 1965, and the outcomes are dismal. Russ Whitehurst of the Brookings Institution summarizes the findings of the most rigorous research: “There is no measurable advantage to children in elementary school of having participated in Head Start. Further, children attending Head Start remain far behind academically once they are in elementary school. Head Start does not improve the school readiness of children from low-income families.”

Fortunately, that is not the end of the story. Over the past several years, there’s been a flurry of activity, as states and private groups put together better early childhood programs. In these programs, the teachers are better trained. There are more rigorous performance standards. The curriculum is better matched to the one the children will find when they enter kindergarten.

These state programs, in places like Oklahoma, Georgia and New Jersey, have not been studied as rigorously as Head Start. There are huge quality differences between different facilities in the same state or the same town. The best experts avoid sweeping conclusions. Nonetheless, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that these state programs can make at least an incremental difference in preparing children for school and in getting parents to be more engaged in their kids’ education.

These programs do not perform miracles, but incremental improvements add up year by year and produce significantly better lives.

Enter President Obama. This week he announced the most ambitious early childhood education expansion in decades. Early Thursday morning, early education advocates were sending each other ecstatic e-mails. They were stunned by the scope of what Obama is proposing.

But, on this subject, it’s best to be hardheaded. So I spent Wednesday and Thursday talking with experts and administration officials, trying to be skeptical. Does the president’s plan merely expand the failing federal effort or does it focus on quality and reform? Is the president trying to organize a bloated centralized program or is he trying to be a catalyst for local experimentation?

So far the news is very good. Obama is trying to significantly increase the number of kids with access to early education. The White House will come up with a dedicated revenue stream that will fund early education projects without adding to the deficit. These federal dollars will be used to match state spending, giving states, many of whom want to move aggressively, further incentive to expand and create programs.

But Washington’s main role will be to measure outcomes, not determine the way states design their operations. Washington will insist that states establish good assessment tools. They will insist that pre-K efforts align with the K-12 system. But beyond that, states will have a lot of latitude.

Should early education centers be integrated with K-12 school buildings or not? Should the early childhood teachers be unionized or certified? Obama officials say they want to leave those sorts of questions up to state experimentation. “I’m just about building quality,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan told me. The goal is to make the federal oversight as simple as possible.

That’s crucial. There’s still a lot we don’t know about how to educate children that young. The essential thing is to build systems that can measure progress, learn and adapt to local circumstances. Over time, many children will migrate from Head Start into state programs.

This is rude to say, but here’s what this is about: Millions of parents don’t have the means, the skill or, in some cases, the interest in building their children’s future. Early childhood education is about building structures so both parents and children learn practical life skills. It’s about getting kids from disorganized homes into rooms with kids from organized homes so good habits will rub off. It’s about instilling achievement values where they are absent.

President Obama has taken on a big challenge in a realistic and ambitious way. If Republicans really believe in opportunity and local control, they will get on board.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

Pre-school is available if parents want to send their child to one. Or day cares that make it a point to teach skills. And I didn't read through all the articles, but the part BEP quoted makes no sense because kids don't learn to regulate emotions by going to school, they learn it from their parents from the moment they are born.

Once again, you're inability to read or you just have a chronic tendency to use strawman arguments can be seen in this post of yours. I quoted the article in the OP that made the claim about controlling emotions.

Now to address your point, one that I did not make:

Sure kids learn to control emotions home, but as we have more two working parent homes, with more latch-key kids, more is left to the schools. Also, when poor educational policies and methods are used to educate, more frustration with acting out can happen too. So there is some overlap here. Thus, arguing for less parental involvement ( which we hear all the time from our educations is part of the problem) is not a solution but keeping the problem and exacerbating it. Funny, how we have more psychology studies being required by educators and administrators but more problems than ever. And calling for more federal involvement to handle them.

Now go to the back of the class.

[mr. tegu]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

Once again, you're inability to read or you just have a chronic tendency to use strawman arguments can be seen in this post of yours. I quoted the article in the OP that made the claim about controlling emotions.

Now to address your point, one that I did not make:

Sure kids learn to control emotions home, but as we have more two working parent homes, with more latch-key kids, more is left to the schools. Also, when poor educational policies and methods are used to educate, more frustration with acting out can happen too. So there is some overlap here. Thus, arguing for less parental involvement ( which we hear all the time from our educations is part of the problem) is not a solution but keeping the problem and exacerbating it. Funny, how we have more psychology studies being required by educators and administrators but more problems than ever. And calling for more federal involvement to handle them.

Now go to the back of the class.

What are you talking about? I DISAGREE with the quoted portion made in your post. I never even claimed you made any point (hence the reason I never even quoted you) nor addressed anything YOU wrote so I have no idea what you are referencing. Idiot.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

What are you talking about? I DISAGREE with the quoted portion made in your post. I never even claimed you made any point (hence the reason I never even quoted you) nor addressed anything YOU wrote so I have no idea what you are referencing. Idiot.

You're right. I saw my name and read the rest wrong. 'Er, it could be taken another way. It seemed like you thought I quoted it because I agreed with it. My apologies.

[mr. tegu]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

You're right. I saw my name and read the rest wrong. My apologies.

I am genuinely impressed. Apologies accepted.

Now to emotion regulation, I disagree with their premise that earlier schooling will improve upon a child's poor skills for a few reasons. First, emotion regulation and the ability to achieve this and regulate internally begins at birth. A baby cries because they need a basic need met, such as food or something scared them and they need to be comforted. When the parent responds appropriately and in a timely manner, they relieve the stress and anxiety in the child. Over time, the child learns to regulate emotions and not lash out with negative behaviors when they feel hungry, scared, sad, etc. because they have learned to regulate those emotions based on the fact that they are comforted in knowing that their needs will eventually be met. The ability to internally regulate and control emotions is not because a child is going to preschool it is because of what happens at home. Which leads to another point.

If you have a child that already has difficulty controlling emotions, further inhibiting their ability to receive appropriate responses to needs being met (going to pre-school) will only worsen their stress and anxiety in those situations. The higher the stress level and anxiety, the harder it is to control emotions. If anything a child going to school that isn't ready will only worsen their emotion regulation.

Sure, schooling could help show the child their outburst of emotions are not appropriate and that they need to behave in certain ways, but this is more of a bandaid on a larger problem, because internally they are still struggling with their emotions. It is nice to not have a child hit another child because he wants to avoid getting in trouble. But it is even better for the child to not want to hit the other child at because they can control their anger in an appropriate way that doesn't involve lashing out at others.

[WhiteWhale]

As someone who didn't attend Pre-K and was generally not around other kids very much when I was young, it stunted my social development by years.

I think it's a big deal. Learning how to work with and communicate with your peers is important.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by WhiteWhale

I think it's a big deal. Learning how to work with and communicate with your peers is important.

Just not with one's parents.

[mr. tegu]

Originally Posted by WhiteWhale

As someone who didn't attend Pre-K and was generally not around other kids very much when I was young, it stunted my social development by years.

I think it's a big deal. Learning how to work with and communicate with your peers is important.

Very true. But I am not so sure it should be required of all kids. I went to pre-school and I will likely send my kids should we have any, but I know that it isn't something that would be appropriate for all kids.

[WhiteWhale]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

Just not with one's parents.

I was a complete social retard until 2nd grade.

I didn't have 'emotional problems' I just reacted emotionally because it was unfamiliar and I felt strange and isolated around other kids.

I got over it, but those formative years would have been much easier socially if I had some experience with kids prior to starting school. 5 years old is too late to start socializing kids. The longer you wait, the longer you set back their social development. Pre-k is a great way to do that.

[WhiteWhale]

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

Very true. But I am not so sure it should be required of all kids. I went to pre-school and I will likely send my kids should we have any, but I know that it isn't something that would be appropriate for all kids.

I don't think anything works in absolutes, but I would argue the only kids who don't need it are kids who regularly socialize with kids their own age in other ways.

To me, that's the most important thing. One thing I do know is that if a kid lacks social skills putting it off may seem like the best thing for them, but it's probably not the best thing long term.

Of course, they could have some developmental disorder or something like that as well.

Nothing is absolute.

[Direckshun]

An elderly person receives close to seven federal dollars for every dollar received by a child.

State and local spending on public schools dwarfs all other forms of spending on children, averaging $7,154 per child, out of a total public investment of $11,822 per child in 2008.

In total, public spending on the elderly was $26,355 per person, or 2.2 times the amount spent per child in 2008. Health care expenses are a significant portion of public expenditures on the elderly—more than $11,000 per person—but per capita spending on the elderly remains considerably higher than per capita spending on children even when health spending is excluded.

(Source.)

[mr. tegu]

Originally Posted by WhiteWhale

I don't think anything works in absolutes, but I would argue the only kids who don't need it are kids who regularly socialize with kids their own age in other ways.

To me, that's the most important thing. One thing I do know is that if a kid lacks social skills putting it off may seem like the best thing for them, but it's probably not the best thing long term.

Of course, they could have some developmental disorder or something like that as well.

Nothing is absolute.

It isn't just about social skills though. Yeah, pre-school is a great way for kids to start learning social skills but kids can learn those without going to school. I am pretty sure daycares don't just have one kid sittting in a room by themself. My nephew was going to local kids gyms and playing in parks long before starting preschool earlier this year.

There are so many factors beyond just age that determine if a child is ready to go to preschool, such as physical/developmental health, emotional stability, and familial stability. Again, I think pre-school is good but I think it is hard to say every child should be mandated to go to preschool because they hit a certain age, despite whether or not they are ready.Afterall, it isn't like this is something that isn't available right now anyways.


Heck, it is already pretty common to hold kids back in kindergarten because they aren't ready to move on. I wonder how many would stay in preschool an extra year.

[Iowanian]

Preschool is actually one of the programs Obama pushes that I support.

Kids learn early easier than later. This program probably isn't as much benefit to children like mine who are read to nightly essentially from birth, or my 2yr old that knows all the letters and counts into the 20s. They do well because we work with them all of the time....and I still want them in preschool if available.

There is a pretty big segment of society that doesn't take the time to read with their kids, to teach them fundamentals, or the basic principles of being a decent human being. You don't have to look to far to see those kids. Getting them in early I do agree helps them get going and they won't be as far behind when they do start school.

I think this is a good thing to spend tax payer money on. Making our kids more educated should have an influence on getting more of them to be productive and successful adult citizens.

[WhiteWhale]

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

It isn't just about social skills though. Yeah, pre-school is a great way for kids to start learning social skills but kids can learn those without going to school. I am pretty sure daycares don't just have one kid sittting in a room by themself. My nephew was going to local kids gyms and playing in parks long before starting preschool earlier this year.

I said exactly that. You sound as if you are disagreeing, but you are not. I haven't said anything about my position on making such things mandatory. I simply stated the importance of heavy social interaction with peers at a young age.

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

There are so many factors beyond just age that determine if a child is ready to go to preschool, such as physical/developmental health, emotional stability, and familial stability. Again, I think pre-school is good but I think it is hard to say every child should be mandated to go to preschool because they hit a certain age, despite whether or not they are ready. Afterall, it isn't like this is something that isn't available right now anyways.

Yeah, I said that too.

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

Heck, it is already pretty common to hold kids back in kindergarten because they aren't ready to move on. I wonder how many would stay in preschool an extra year.

Most kids are held back because of slow social development. Actually of all the kids I know the only ones that were held back were kids who lacked social experience. I'd argue that this is the primary reason WHY kids are held back in kindergarten and that only slows their intellectual development. Too many kids are held back intellectually for social reasons that could have, and should have, been avoided.

[go bo]

this /\

[Mile High Mania]

Governmental assistance in the womb to tomb fashion! Lets not focus on the broken families, etc... the govt can fix it.