Posted on 08/22/2008 3:01:39 PM PDT by Amelia
Barack Obama says he believes in universal preschool and if he's elected president he'll pump "billions of dollars into early childhood education." Universal preschool is now second only to universal health care on the liberal policy wish list....
..."Advocates and supporters of universal preschool often use existing research for purely political purposes," says James Heckman, a University of Chicago Noble laureate in economics whose work Mr. Obama and preschool activists routinely cite. "But the solid evidence for the effectiveness of early interventions is limited to those conducted on disadvantaged populations."...
...If anything, preschool may do lasting damage to many children. A 2005 analysis by researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, found that kindergartners with 15 or more hours of preschool every week were less motivated and more aggressive in class. Likewise, Canada's C.D. Howe Institute found a higher incidence of anxiety, hyperactivity and poor social skills among kids in Quebec after universal preschool.
The only preschool programs that seem to do more good than harm are very intense interventions targeted toward severely disadvantaged kids. A 1960s program in Ypsilanti, Mich., a 1970s program in Chapel Hill, N.C., and a 1980s program in Chicago, Ill., all report a net positive effect on adult crime, earnings, wealth and welfare dependence for participants. But the kids in the Michigan program had low IQs and all came from very poor families, often with parents who were drug addicts and neglectful.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Actually, I think that this is of more interest to the homeschool ping list.
Any time someone tries to make school attendance mandatory, it has the potential to have an effect on all homeschoolers.
I’ll ping that list.
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Something to keep in mind should obama win the election.
The Obama daughters currently attend the University of Chicago Laboratory School. One of them is in kindergarten. The school also runs a nursery school. Tuition for nursery school or kindergarten is almost $17,000 per year.
Michelle Obama is on the school’s board, as is heiress Penny Pritzker, who is a major supporter of Obama.
Bill Ayers, retired terrorist, is a professor of education at that university.
So it’s a good bet that the girls went to nursery school there, too.
Ugh. And of course, after a few years such programs will become mandatory... like kindergarten is.
Wow! That’s one heck of a tuition bill.
IIRC, it started out in Georgia for the low-income children, then working parents were offended because low-income parents got free preschool/daycare, so it was offered to everyone...
I have a lot of students in that situation now.
I read not long ago that the average tuition cost for independent (not church-based) private schools in the D.C. area was $25K/year.
Geeze! This joke is becoming a reality. :-(
Unreal.
“Ugh. And of course, after a few years such programs will become mandatory... like kindergarten is.”
Kindergarten isn’t mandatory here in Washington State (nor should it be)..
Just an FYI...
It IS however, paid for by taxpayer money, even though IT IS NOT mandatory...
Kids need to be kids with imaginations and unstructured time outside, fostering creativity in their young minds.
They don’t need to be in an institution. They don’t need to be worried about where to stand on a soccer field.
They need to be outside running around, digging in the dirt, swinging from branches, and throwing rocks in a creek.
This is another reason to stay away from the govco education institutions.
Compulsory “education” starts in North Carolina at age 7, so my Pat isn’t “school age” yet even though he’s in the second grade at Sunday School. What’s required and what’s available in terms of government education varies by state, and even by district.
Government creches are actually a goal of NEA that goes back to Dewey et al. Children cannot be uniformly and properly trained so long as the parents pollute the process with their random “values” and traditions. Children must be removed from their parents within the first year and raised by experts who know how to do it for the benefit of society.
A few interesting quotes, pulled at random from the article:
The not-so-universal state of pre-kindergarten has frustrated many parents and children’s advocates, who cite studies showing that access to early education classes can be critical in smoothing out socioeconomic differences in vocabulary and development and in preparing children for the demands of schoolwork.Few school administrators dispute the benefits of pre-kindergarten, but many say it is impractical to provide it to every child.
Jon Hunter, Fairport’s superintendent, said school officials and parents in this 7,000-student district once rejected the idea of universal pre-kindergarten, viewing it as nothing more than a remedial program when most of their students were already well prepared.
Again, IMO the idea of universal pre-K education is stupid and unnecessary, but it might be a good idea to provide it for very disadvantaged children. It should be a state and local decision, although I'll note that the localities that most need it might also be those that can least afford it.
Kindergarten is not mandatory in Arizona, either. But many people THINK it is. I have known people who knew they child wasn’t ready for kindergarten. I will tell them kindergarten is not required. The minimum school age is 6.
Children need their mommies, not daycare.
I'm a father who helped homeschool five children.
Formal schooling should not start at a minimum until eight years of age. Any educational concepts learned before then are easily learned at a later date when their brains are more developed
Bottom line is early education burns your child out as their brains are not ready for it.
I think it depends on the child. Personally, I started first grade at five years of age, and nearly half a century later, I still don't feel "burned out" on education, have attained several degrees, and am still taking college classes as time and finances allow.
Congratulations on helping to homeschool your five children. Do allow me to point out that some homes don't have involved fathers such as yourself, or for that matter, fathers at all.
The children who really need preschool are those in very underprivileged households who are not talked to, not played with, not read to, etc. Children such as your own do not.
pre-school should be about getting out a few hours during the week to play with other kids and get a positive experience.
Turning it into an all day, every day affair is bad for the kids and certainly shouldn’t be funded by the government.
See my post #13...I think we agree.
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