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 ...
it sounds like you are enrolling your son in a program that is traditionally what preschool has been all about for years - a few days a week - a few hours at a time.
Time enough to play with other kids, to gain a positive school experience, and in your case to throw some religion in as well. What’s not to like?
But then the libs have to take a good thing and twist it.
Let’s take that idea and expand on it. Let’s make it all day everyday. Let’s make it structured - give it a state approved curriculum.
Let’s mandate the programs by the state so that each district has to offer it.
And let’s do this despite the fact that studies have shown 15 hours per week to be the cutoff. Beyond that it stops being helpful and even begins to hurt.
The libs love educational studies until they hurt their preconceived premises.
Then they pretend those particular studies never took place.
Undoubtedly.
In 2000, I enrolled our firstborn at age 4 into the "optional" public school preschool program. Once enrolled, he was required to attend everyday (like all other schoolkids). When I couldn't bring him everyday due to lack of transportation, the principal threatened to charge me with truancy.
If the local principal will threaten parents with truancy charges for "optional" preschool just two hours/day, imagine what would happen if we had "universal preschool". That principal was concerned about the attendance report he had to send to the state; imagine if the state were receiving federal funds for "universal preschool" based on the number of students enrolled.
At the time, in 2000, Gore/Lieberman were calling for "universal preschool". I could see plainly where that idea would lead.
Except perhaps for very underprivileged children whose parents aren't very good parents.
But everyone shouldn't have to take medicine just because a few people are ill.
“But everyone shouldn’t have to take medicine just because a few people are ill.”
exactly, and headstart is already available for the group you mentioned.
Other leftists KNOW what the effects are, and intentionally promote policies that are destructive in order to gain power in the long run.
FR threads on the topic:
Stupid Left vs Satanic Left
Stupid Left, Satanic Left
Some leftists are ignorant of the effects of the policies they support, preferring instead to “feel good” about what they think is the intent - “helping the poor”, “social justice”, “equality”, etc.
Other leftists KNOW what the effects are, and intentionally promote policies that are destructive in order to gain power in the long run.
**************************************************************
I’m of the school of thought that asserts that leftists can be both stupid AND evil at the same time - the Syncretic School.
“It takes a special combination of arrogance and ignorance to make a liberal”
MrB, FReeper extraordinaire. :)
One year ago, I needed a part-time job and gave in and worked at the public grade school up the street. I was a teacher’s aide in the pre-school class.
Parents had to pay just over $200 per month for the morning session while those leaving their kids all day paid around $400 per month.
A typical day began with the Pledge of Allegiance, songs, reading a book about the subject being taught for the week (dinosaurs was one week, the ocean another and so on).
After that, they had an art project followed by a required snack and recess time.
Then the morning kids went home.
After they went home, the full time kids ate their lunch, then they had to be on the mats for quiet time for one hour. They were able to watch a (whatever the teacher put in) Disney movie.
Then they would have choice time (legos, play with dolls, play doh), recess, snack time, an art project and finally, they went home.
It is glorified baby sitting and I would never do it again. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the kids but I already raised my kids and homeschooled them throughout most of their lives but parents take advantage of these programs.
How they are able to fork out that kind of money, I’ll never know.
Wow, parents had to pay for public preschool? Sounds kind of like cheap daycare, though.
Yes, the parents have to pay. Seems crazy, especially since our property taxes keep going up even though our valuations have dropped like crazy!!
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