Posted on 02/26/2013 5:32:50 AM PST by Kaslin
President Obama ended his State of the Union speech on a warm and fuzzy note by calling for pre-K programs for almost all children. The best thing he could do for pre-kindergarten children is to make sure he doesn't hang trillions of dollars of debt around their necks, but that isn't the route he is taking.
Instead, Obama wants to provide government daycare for all preschoolers who live in households where the income is below approximately $47,100. He doesn't call it daycare or babysitting (which is a more accurate term); he calls it early childhood education.
Early childhood education means programs for kids from birth to age 3 (a massively expanded Early Head Start, home visits by nurses, parental education and health services), more of the existing Head Start (mostly for 3-year-olds), more "high-quality preschool" for 4-year-olds available to every child in America and full-day kindergarten for all.
Obama went to College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center near Atlanta to formally unveil his extravagant program. He said, "Let's do what works and make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind."
The daycare advocates like to cite as models for success the so-called Perry Preschool Project and the Abecedarian Project. Those two projects took place a half-century ago, using highly trained teachers under optimum conditions; one project studied only 58 3-to 4-year-old children, and the other only 57.
The proclaimed purpose of pre-K education is to close the gap between kids from high-income and low-income households. The defect in Obama's announcement is that there is no evidence that pre-K schooling can or will accomplish that -- it's not a program "that works."
The federal program called Head Start was created in 1965 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. It has been running nearly 50 years, now costing $23,000 per student, and incurring a total expense of $150 billion, but it still does not provide promised benefits.
Obama likes to say he is guided by "the science," and he claims that "study after study" shows every dollar of Pre-K "investment" (that's the liberals' synonym for taxes) saves seven dollars later on. Obama's falsehood is easily refuted.
In fact, all studies show that Head Start and all the early interventions do not achieve what they promised, and any benefits "fade out" by the third grade. His own Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) did an important Head Start Impact Study tracking the progress of 3- and 4-year-olds from entering Head Start through kindergarten and first grade and then a follow-up study on the students' performance through the end of the third grade.
The conclusion was that Head Start had little to no effect on cognitive, social-emotional or health outcomes of participating children. The HHS report was released on the Friday before Christmas, hoping to avoid press coverage and to minimize public attention.
The principal goals of the billions of federal tax dollars poured into public schools during the George W. Bush Administration were to raise U.S. scores on international tests and to close the gap between high-income and low-income students. All that spending was a failure on both counts.
Head Start was based on the assumption that government schools can compensate children for the disadvantage of being poor. It's time to face up to the fact that children are poor mainly because they don't have a father provider-protector, and the problem we should address is the decline in marriage.
Obama's pre-K proposals are just a reprise of the perennial feminist demand for government-paid daycare. The feminists believe it's part of the war on women by the patriarchy for society to expect mothers to care for their children, and they should be relieved of this burden by the taxpayers.
Can you believe? The feminists are still whining about President Richard Nixon's 1971 veto of the Brademas-Mondale Comprehensive Child Development Act, which would have made daycare (now called Pre-K) a new middle class entitlement. A feminist article on Feb. 14, 2013 in The New York Times claimed that Obama's pre-K proposal is a resurrection of Walter Mondale's bill that was defeated under a tsunami of public opposition.
The feminists are thrilled that Obama has picked up where Mondale left off 42 years ago. Remember Mondale? He was defeated by Ronald Reagan back in 1984.
The real difference between high-achieving and low-achieving children is whether or not they live in a traditional family. There is no substitute for the enormous advantage to children of growing up in a home with their own mother and father.
A better formula for helping kids to achieve in school would be to stop giving financial handouts that operate as incentives to women to have babies without marriage.
May THIS Conservative ask why?
To WHOM?
AMEN!
“May THIS Conservative ask why?”
Absolutely. My wife’s pre-k students were learning their alphabet, colors, days of the week etc...
I’ll also add that she’s currently a Kindergarten teacher and many of her kids are so low (educationally) that they could benefit from a pre-k program. It’s hard for those kids to keep up with the ones that DO know their ABCs and other things.
With the current state of K-12 education I think pre-k helps.
“I have to disagree. Preschool is harmful to children. It makes them peer dependent at a much earlier age. The best place for young children is at home with mom. If that makes me an old-fashioned old fogey, so be it.
I recommend the books by Raymond Moore - Better Late Than Early and School Can Wait.
I am also in favor of homeschooling, although I realize that is not possible for everyone. One thing all parents should do is keep their kids out of government run institutions.”
Peer-dependent? Socialization with other children is a GOOD thing. Another benefit of pre-k is that they learn structure... in other words they learn how to learn :)
I would absolutely love to homeschool but you’re right. Not everyone can do it. Of course I live in Georgia so I don’t have to worry about union teachers. Blech!
It’s not black or white. There are good teachers out there. That said, I think the states should run pre-k, not the federal govt.
No offense to your wife, but isn’t that the sort of thing parents should be teaching their kids? I spend a few minutes a day teaching my almost four year old to read and count. And she’s not exposed to bad influences or peer pressure. Instead she comes with me on errands, does chores, and talks to me about my work.
Why is the government interested in taking my place?
Personally I think you like it because your wife gets paid to do it.
If parents want to send their kids to nursery school, they should pay for it.
“No offense to your wife, but isn’t that the sort of thing parents should be teaching their kids? I spend a few minutes a day teaching my almost four year old to read and count. And she’s not exposed to bad influences or peer pressure. Instead she comes with me on errands, does chores, and talks to me about my work.
Why is the government interested in taking my place?”
Most of the kids in my wife’s pre-k class were below the poverty line. Chances are that the parents of those kids are not highly educated themselves. I’m not interested in government hand-outs but I’m OK with hand-ups. It’s in our best interest to give all kids a chance.
No wonder this country is so screwed up. You think children need structure to “learn to learn?” My ignorant observations are that children begin learning from birth.
It is amazing that even the illegal alien parents I know teach their children from birth. (Anchor babies) I sat at a high school basketball game one night, and an anchor baby toddler was sitting near me. He had blocks with the abcs on them. He named the letters for me as I asked. His mother spoke almost no English. His older siblings read to him in English and taught him letters and numbers. No structure. Just normal life. He will be ready for kindergarten. As for mom and her legal status, that is a problem he will eventually understand.
You don’t need to be highly educated to teach your child the abcs. How many Americans in the last 50 years have failed to graduate from elementary school???
In the scheme of all of life, honestly, there is not much that I know from experience.
I do know that children are best raised by adults who are moral (as best they can) and who love them, viewing them as children as of God and hold expectations of and interact with them as such. I saw it. I did it as a blessing from God. It happened so I know it’s real.
Liberalism is up-side-down.
My wife has taught preschool for years. The only kids that are ready to learn at age 4 are those that get substantial help at home. These kids are already in preschool because their parents want them to excel. The kids that are not currently in preschool will not benefit from it because, for the most part, they will get no help at home. The only benefit to society will be that there will be less unemployment among early childhood education majors. No wait....unemployment creates jobs, right?
And I still disagree. :-) Socialization does not happen in herds. In fact, children learn social skills from adults, not other children. Children should be in the company of people who show what it means to be polite and mature.
Government has no business in education whatsoever. Government can’t even run a 2-car funeral, much less run schools. What kids learn in pre-K is to sit down, shut up, and do what they are told. The smarter ones are probably bored to tears. Young children need adult guidance in manners and behavior and freedom to explore, create, and run around.
Isn't that what PARENTS are for?
I'm SURE that if PHYSICAL signs of child abuse is found on those children; your wife is REQUIRED to notify authorities.
Why isn't the lack of early training by parents ALSO considered child abuse?
We keep tending the cowbirds eggs and when they hatch, they push the legitimate nestlings out, thereby taking all the resources of the foster (foisted upon) nest builders.
“Isn’t that what PARENTS are for?
I’m SURE that if PHYSICAL signs of child abuse is found on those children; your wife is REQUIRED to notify authorities.
Why isn’t the lack of early training by parents ALSO considered child abuse?
We keep tending the cowbirds eggs and when they hatch, they push the legitimate nestlings out, thereby taking all the resources of the foster (foisted upon) nest builders.”
Hey, I hear ya...
I won’t argue with the notion that parents should step up and take care of their child’s education. However, who gets punished in the end? It’s the kids.
I would love it if we fixed our K-12 system so that we wouldn’t have a need for pre-k. That’s just not a reality. My wife’s students were better off at the end of the year than they would have been if they hadn’t taken the pre-k program.
Side note: The Georgia Pre-k program is lottery-funded, just like the Hope Scholarship. I would like to see what Obama has in mind as far as funding pre-k on a national level.
“Government has no business in education whatsoever. Government can’t even run a 2-car funeral, much less run schools. What kids learn in pre-K is to sit down, shut up, and do what they are told. The smarter ones are probably bored to tears. Young children need adult guidance in manners and behavior and freedom to explore, create, and run around.”
I think you and I agree on the way it SHOULD BE. Where we may part ways is how we deal with the way it IS. You’re always going to have conservative, faith-filled households with good parents as well as godless liberal parents who lack the time/energy/desire to teach their kids the simplest things. In the latter scenario the kids are the real losers and it’s a real shame.
FYI my wife is a conservative Christian woman who cares about kids. We shouldn’t paint all public education with a broad brush should we?
In order to fix education we need to:
1. Remove the teachers who don’t care and replace them with those who do. It’s near impossible to get fired for being a poor teacher these days. That’s ludicrous!
2. Let those GOOD teachers do their job! Bureaucrats don’t know what they are talking about for the most part.
Yuh huh- you're a conservative, yet you automatically think of only one possible reason why people might not want universal pre-k, when there are as many reasons as there are parents. Way to demogauge and dismiss an entire group, you have learned well from your master.
Children of pre-K age belong with their mothers, at home. It is a fundamentaly important period for strengthening parent-child bonds, which lay the foundation for how well your child will deal with life.
Obama is talking MANDATORY ("universal") pre-k, which means all children must attend. That is not a power enumerated to the federal government. Further, mandatory means taxes will be raised to fund it, and that makes it even harder for those who wish to keep their own children at home, since they are forced to fund others.
The longer kids stay at home with a parent, the better they do. Kindergarten used to be voluntary, did you know that? And the generation that started school in first grade scored significantly higher on SAT tests than this generation.
“No wonder this country is so screwed up. You think children need structure to “learn to learn?” My ignorant observations are that children begin learning from birth.”
Yes. Children DO need structure. They also need to know how to handle themselves in a classroom environment. There’s raising your hand, standing in line etc...
I’m glad you mentioned illegal alien parents. My wife has several students in her kindergarten class that speak NO ENGLISH whatsoever.
It’s a shame that there are parents who don’t take the time to teach their kids basic things. However it’s a FACT OF LIFE. You’re talking about conservative ideals and I agree... it SHOULD be the way you say but it isn’t.
So what do we do then? Do we allow the kids, who are the real losers in this scenario, to fall behind in kindergarten?
What happens in kindergarten is that the “high” kids are no longer being challenged because the class curriculum has been simplified for the “low” kids. Pre-k provides a boost for those children who don’t know english, or learn things slower than their peers.
“Yuh huh- you’re a conservative, yet you automatically think of only one possible reason why people might not want universal pre-k, when there are as many reasons as there are parents. Way to demogauge and dismiss an entire group, you have learned well from your master.
Children of pre-K age belong with their mothers, at home. It is a fundamentaly important period for strengthening parent-child bonds, which lay the foundation for how well your child will deal with life.
Obama is talking MANDATORY (”universal”) pre-k, which means all children must attend. That is not a power enumerated to the federal government. Further, mandatory means taxes will be raised to fund it, and that makes it even harder for those who wish to keep their own children at home, since they are forced to fund others.
The longer kids stay at home with a parent, the better they do. Kindergarten used to be voluntary, did you know that? And the generation that started school in first grade scored significantly higher on SAT tests than this generation.”
First of all, my master? Maybe tone down the insults and we can have a conversation.
Some parents work. You’ll need to deal with reality at some point. I would love it if my wife could stay home and take care of our little girl. However, for many reason she cannot. It’s really easy to say “this is the way it should be, darnit!” but the culture in America has changed.
I was in after school program as a kid because both my parents worked. I turned out to be a conservative Christian family man. No socialism here!
I only agree with the idea of widely-available pre-k. I realize, however, that the devil’s in the details. If there was a responsible way to provide that to families I think we should.
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