Universal Pre-School -- Opportunity and Risk
It's not about elections, but better education is one reason people care about who wins elections.
At the Drum Major Institute forum Monday morning, a standing-room-only crowd of experts, politicians, parents and community leaders debated the possibility that NYC public schools will begin to offer all-day pre-k to all. The discussion focused on a model from Oklahoma. OK. State Senator Penny Williams described how that state became among the first try for unversal pre-k. One reason the issue is urgent in NY is that there is some empirical evidence that children who've had high quality pre-k do better in later schooling than those without (High quality, I'm told, amounts to highly-trained teachers in small classes).
The most memorable moments of the forum were the comments of Regents Vice Chancellor Adellaide L. Sanford. Smart, focused, witty, she was willing to speak the truth to power. If ever you have to chance to hear her speak or talk to her, grab it. She was keenly aware of the race and class aspects of these discussions which were sometimes masked in the presentations of others and she tolerated no platitutes about them.
NYC Council Speaker Christian Quinn and UFT President Randy Weingarten kvelled over 2,100 all day pre-k slots created in the current school year. However, in a way characteristic of DMI forums, a conflicts among pre-k advocates were uncovered. Commmunity Based Organzizations (CBOs, in the lingo) run day-care centers staffed in general by lower-paid, perhaps less trained, teachers. To the degree that the public schools take over and professionalize pre-k, those CBOs may be at risk (and do not like it). A UFT source explained to me that the union will seek to locate the new pre-k's in existing schools and -- as an afterthought-- agreed the union would love to organize the CBOs (which with their mix of fundings -- grants, contracts with ACS -- and programs could prove very hard to do). Advocates of CBOs suggested that public schools would not respect the dual language needs of immigrant and non-english speaking families. These disputes may overwhelm the issues. The existing all day and half-day public school pre-k's, I'm told, are somewhat large for classes of 4 year olds: 18 children, one teacher and one para-professional. As I see it, unless the public schools deliver much higher quality care and education than the CBOs, their higher price will drive them out of the market.
The issues swirling around this are easy to recognize but difficult to address. For example: who will pay for this? Many thought it could come out of the CFE settlement which everyone expected would be done as soon as Mr. Spitzer takes office. (Will the City kick in cash for the CFE deal -- Mayor Bloomberg has been saying "No" since he took office.) Will wealthier school district end up with less money and and poorer ones --like NYC end up with more? I'll try to focus on other issues and personalities in this later. Watch this space.
I don't trust universal Pre-K programs
Children don't need schooling at such a tender age. Call me a traditionalist but they need their mothers --and fathers too. Studies have found over and over again that from a neurological perspective, parent-bonding is absolutely critical to higher IQ and learning and critical thinking skills during the language acquisition years.
The incentives ought not to be to separate kids from their parents at such a tender age. One of the the incentives should be to find social spaces that could act as alternatives to closed school settings so new parents don't feel trapped and isolated during the preK years. And of course, paid leaves or sabbatical should be DE RIGUEUR if we are going to have politics based on "family values" ringamaroles.
Our kids don't need more schooling. They need more parenting.
In a better world, caretaker parents would have
more time off. In the world we have, almost all mothers and fathers have to go back to work within one year of the birth of a child. As a result, babies and young children are placed with grandparents, neighbors, or day care centers. Among these scenarios there are bad future outcomes for children. High quality Pre-k for 4 y/o children does seem to improve the school performance outcomes for children. Low quality care seems associated with worse school performance (adjusted for socio-economic status).
Absent a significant revolution in how economic costs and benefits are allocated, universal all-day pre-k seems a better path. So while I agree that more, better parenting is the ideal solution, its doesnt look as though it's in the cards.