Posted on 11/01/2005 7:54:15 AM PST by SmithL
As taxpayers, parents and educators debate the value of public preschool for every child, a new study by UC Berkeley and Stanford researchers finds for the first time that middle-class children -- not just kids from the poorest families -- receive a boost in language and math skills from preschool.
But its darker findings bolster earlier, more controversial conclusions that preschool can hinder social development.
The study, "How much is too much? The Influence of Preschool Centers on Children's Development Nationwide," was released today and comes as Hollywood movie director Rob Reiner leads a group of universal preschool advocates pushing for a June 2006 ballot measure that would tax the wealthiest Californians to fund preschool for all who want it. The study, with its good and bad news, is likely to fuel arguments on both sides of the preschool debate. Universal preschool advocates can seize on the findings that preschool benefits most children in language and math. Those who think scarce preschool resources should continue to go to the poorest children can point to the negative effects on social development, especially for children from the wealthiest families. The study looked not only at aggressive behaviors but also at a child's ability to cooperate and negotiate tasks in a classroom.
"If preschool is expanded, more isn't necessarily better," said UC Berkeley child development research director Margaret Bridges, an author of the study who expressed concern about the negative effects on social development. "Cognitive benefits are great, but we have to pay heed to what's going on with kids emotionally and socially."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
define social development.
Blanket universal pre-school isn't the answer. There are other variables - the child, the teacher, the particular pre-school, the parents, the family, hours per week, etc.
The point is they weren't home with their families.
That seems counter-intuitive; how can earlier social mixing hurt social development?
Pre-school is more about government-funded childcare, and easing the consciences of working mothers, than it is about child development.
The UC Berkeley-Stanford study found that all children who attended preschool at least 15 hours a week displayed more negative social behaviors such as trouble cooperating or acting up, when compared with their peers. The discrepancies were most pronounced among children from higher-income families.
The kids are getting more educationally, but they are also under more pressure - so they compensate by acting out in that typical toddler way. (my 2 cents)
This is a DUH moment for the Berkeley crowd.
Maybe the stay-at-home kids have rules, boundaries, and limitations, and parents who give them more than 15 minutes per day? Maybe they don't get hauled around like sacks of potatoes and dumped at the most convenient place?
In other news, ice salesmen unamimously say that cold is good for you.
Maybe it's just me, but that sounds sinister as hell.
Basically, all of these things have little to do with the ultimate educational and career acheivement of kids. In Finland, which is thought to have one of the best educational systems in the world, most kids don't even start school until they are 7.
The real issue here is parents wanting free day care.
Negative social interaction. Kids pick up some of their worst traits at school, and if they are stuck in preschool and daycare most of the time their parents have very little influence over their behavior.
"The real issue here is parents wanting free day care."
Exactly. That is why there is huge push for all day kindergarten in many areas as well.
Gee, just maybe early years spent at home with Mom, and Dad after work, are best after all? I'm sure the feminazis are busily stirring the pot scrambling to find or create new studies to support their agendas...
"...Hollywood movie director Rob Reiner leads a group of universal preschool advocates pushing for a June 2006 ballot measure ..."
Reiner wants a state run indocterination program with values teaching vetted by the Hollywood left.
PUKE!
dung.
Bingo.
And the lengths they will go to rationalize myths as fact with *studies* about the benefits of having small children cut off from nurturing by a loving parent or family caregiver.
Exactly.
We have little kids, and associate with a number of people with little kids, and they all want universal pre-school. Why? To a person, it's because they want the free day care so momma can work and they can have enough money for all their toys.
My four-year-old son is already reading simple books and is learning basic mathematics without the benefit of certified teachers. We are home schooling our children. Mom stays home with the kids and we struggle financially (especially these past few months!) but we feel our children are more important to us than many material things we're lacking that the neighbors have.
Whenever children get together in large groups with minimal or nonjudgmental supervision, they sink to the lowest common denominator ("Lord of the Flies" effect). That's why behavioral problems increase. The cognitive skills increase is because you're comparing the kids in preschool to random samples of non-preschooled kids. Filter out the bad or indifferent parents of non-preschooled kids and I'd bet you'd see no difference (in other words, and home school studies have borne this out, parents can teach kids these cognitive skills as well as, or better than, certified public-school teachers).
My son's cousin went to an all-day preschool and now attends kindergarten in a public school (the same one my son would attend next year if we were to send him) and is now (2 months into the school year) coming home and making rap music sounds and coming out with gang-banger slang expressions. Too bad my son's missing out on all that "socialization" isn't it? He plays with other home-schooled kids who are also aren't exposed to cultural trash.
And remember, it's the perfect morsel for LIbs-IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN!
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