Universal Preschool: A silver bullet for education reform or a waste of money?

[phil8888]

Sometimes I just feel like giving up. All I seem to hear from everyone is "more government spending". I guess Hayek really knew what he was talking about when he said we're on the road to serfdom.

[HEATHCLIFF82]

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[hoorano]

The accreditation entities (NAEYC, NECPA, etc.) provide higher standards for private preschools than the ones that are publicly ran. In the state I live, there was a movement for universal child care, but the alliance for the preschool stopped it. The alliance knew that once the govt take over the preschools, the accreditation standards are thrown out. More money is needed for higher quality & the state won't want to invest it to match the accreditation standards.

[claudeb007]

Here in Quebec, we already have this kind of system and you know what? It does not work. It does not work because teachers are not forced to give their best to their students. Public system is not driven by competition it is driven by unions who only wants more teachers to pay more union fees. Private schools are known to perform better than public because they must be good if they want to survive. Public schools do not need to fight to survive, they only have to wait for tax money to drop in.

[tickyul]

This education reform is all a lot of hocus pocus.

I compare it to all of the dumb, big brother tactics being used to try and get fat, bloated, piggish, Ameritards to pry the junk food out of their mouths. Fatasses know what they need to do to lose weight, they just are too undisciplined and pathetic to do it, they do not need big brother to hold their hands.

It is the same way with the Idiotic kids we call students and their parents . They do not care about learing, plain and simple.

[FireGuyX]

@tickyul And you're better then the so called idiotic kids and parents? Judging by your response I don't think so.

[tickyul]

@FireGuyX I do not have kids, but, if I did I would really strive to be a good role model. The example you set for your kids is so important, whether it is in your eating habits, littering, finances, kids really pick up on what their parents do. Some people just do not have what it takes to do a good job of raising kids, maybe they should not have had them in the first place. Lots of parents do not even put any effort into their kids education.....how sad.

[tickyul]

I hate to say it, but, here it goes. I do not think all of the money in the world is going to make the USA's low achieving students improve very much if any. Programs, money, new dumbed down teaching techniques will all come up as failures, BECAUSE, it is not getting to the root of the problem. 90% of the problem lies with the PARENTS AND STUDENTS! The parents do not work with the kids and they don't instill in them the love of learning, thus, the kids see no value in trying in school= dummies.

[FireGuyX]

@tickyul It's the schools failing the students, not the students failing the school. Compulsory education since the day it was singed into law in every U.S state is a failure. The fact is not everyone is meant for school. That doesn't mean everyone is dumb, it just means every individual is different. Kids learn and work at a difference pace compared to the next person. Schools should be handled by the free market with little government intervention as possible, that's the only solution.

[tickyul]

@FireGuyX Haha, you have bought into Big Brothers BRAINWASHING, congrats. The beast keeps squealing for more and more money because...........of course they want to expand worthless government programs. And.........uh, who the hell should have most of the responsibility for making sure a student learns, of course...logically most of the responsibility should rest on the shoulders of the one being taught and the gaurdian responsible for them...simple concept.

[FireGuyX]

@tickyul You are a dumb ass, I made it clear in my post that I don't support public schools.

[FireGuyX]

@tickyul and you're the one who's brainwashed here.

[tickyul]

@FireGuyX wow, a real well thought out post. Instead of picking out the fallacies of my post you protect the beast. You must be a person who has interest in maintaining the broken, failing system...then you can scream really loud for more porkulus.

[FireGuyX]

@tickyul are you dumb? I just flat out said, I don't support the public school system at all. I don't like the idea of government forcing children into schools, I don't like the idea of government forcing taxpayers to fund it. I support free-market education (ie educational freedom). 

[tickyul]

@FireGuyX Sorry for the misunderstanding, I cross posted by mistake. I went off on the wrong person. I was forced out of my nice neighborhood school as a little kid, bused to a strange minority school all in the name of diversity, what a nightmare that was, that is where part of my gripe comes from.

[tickyul]

@FireGuyX @FireGuyX Sorry for the misunderstanding, I cross posted by mistake. I went off on the wrong person. I was forced out of my nice neighborhood school as a little kid, bused to a strange minority school all in the name of diversity, what a nightmare that was, that is where part of my gripe comes from.

[singlaprety12]

my privite preeschool ruined my life..

i was in specail ed pre school just because my parents wanted a "early start" that school started at two..

my life was harder and took a long time to recover ..

thats why spell alot wrong cause i never went to a normal spelling class

[Rayitodesol777]

It's because nobody knows where to send those kids... The kindergartens are too expensive, and babysitters don't pass any mental health test for you to trust your children... The poor kids have no place to go. That is why publicly funded pre-school has to be made available, so that the kids can go somewhere safe...

[AikidoSaintTKE]

Didn't have that garbage when I was a child. Neither did my friends. Most of us turned out ok. What is this crap about safe? If you want safe send your kid to a padded room.

[tickyul]

@Rayitodesol777 Yeah, that is just what we need, the federal government and most state governments are broke, lets start ANOTHER program that does not work and costs a lot of money that we don't have...........ah, it is ok, we can just print MORE. We now have school breakfast, lunch.................and NOW in some places.... school dinner programs.....where does it end????

[JadeDragon007]

Preschool?

Why don't you just put your kids through grade-K for 2yrs?

Any time someones say raise tax for education, THEY ARE SAYING "I AM GOING TO STEAL MORE MONEY FROM YOU,STUPID!"

I have never seen any improvement when they raise tax for schools when I was in school.

[CaliforniaArchitect]

This universal preschool is a risky scheme that we cannot afford.

[hopewhistle]

I am an elementary principal. Don't know who is calling universal preschool a silver bullet. Early childhood education has proven to be the number one intervention in preventing school failure. Read the research cited in ASCD publication Educational Leadership, Early Intervention at Every Age October 2007 | Volume 65 | Number 2

[EveryoneNeedsToChill]

So you think that the government should raise my kids??

Fuck that.

I'm sorry but this is ridiculous.

This is communist and the government has no right to do this.

And have you ever considered, for a moment, that some people aren't MEANT for school?? That some people would leave the greatest impact on the world by forging their OWN path, instead of continuing this sterile process we're being forced into?

[hopewhistle]

Maybe EveryoneNeedsToChill should, actually, chill. F Bombs and communist comparison is overreaction. Taking St. John's Wort might help you...

[Mikashmak]

I agree.

[CaliforniaArchitect]

I am aware of research supporting universal preschool that was done solely in the poorest inner city areas where being out of the home and away from the parent would actually be a benefit to the kids. But that was NOT a good sample population to derive a conclusion for the entire country. It was only anecdotal evidence.

[tickyul]

@hopewhistle Yeah sure, coming from a nonbiased source, of course you want the beast fed more and more dollars.

[CrossoverManiac]

That old fart trying to take our money for government indoctrination camps for 4 year olds looks like Jabba the Hutt.

[pikkelton]

I would like to see Miss Manhattan beach Montessori with a class made up of low income PreK students who have never been in school before and see how she feels about the challenge then.

I am ashamed of Drew Carey. This is complete propaganda. Do you really think that parents are the best at evaluating their children's child care provider? They need care so they can get to work. How about all of the parent who drop their kids off at day care that ends up closing due to child abuse and neglect?

[pirruris05]

Austin, TX has a Montessori school that includes an Spanish immersion program for at-risk children (the best part...its free to the community)...and by the way Montessori school was started as education system for the poor and retarded in Italy by Maria Montessori.

[truthadvocate]

Competition improves quality. Case closed. Of course, the public education activists refuse to face reality. So every little boy and girl is screwed because they have to fit into the tyrannical good-intentioned plans of the liberal. Screw that! People who fight for competition and educational freedom care about the children far more than the bastards who force their single perspective on the rest of the citizens.

[user197a]

Ahhh, preschool... those were my glory days. I was the most popular kid at my preschool, and the teachers didn't dare to tell me what to do. I ran that joint.

[letsgojogging]

i went to a private preschool. i did not learn much besides socialization. it was my mom who personally taught me how to read at four. i think preschool should be voluntary and available for free. but not mandatory. one-to-one tutoring will always be superior to boring, stupid, rigid, bland school.

[Transitiving]

Children are our future. We need to confiscate them at birth and raise them in laboratories so they will serve their country with the utmost efficiency.

[CountArtha]

The number one thing parents can do to make sure their kids do well is to teach them how to read before kindergarten OR preschool. I learned to read when I was two; that's a four-year head start.

[Knoss]

Not true some kids learn at two, others at four, others at ten. It needs to be recognized that children develope at difernt levels and need that there is no one magic solution.

I think the reason SAT scores have gone down is because more pople are going to university and the admissions standards for university has generaly dropped.

[Mikashmak]

I totally agree.."no one magic solution".

[whoo689]

Students are the biggest sufferers in the education debate in this country. You've got many sides pulling them in all sorts of directions and giving us all these wacky experiments and programs, and they just have to take it. Students and parents are left out of the equation, as if they don't know what's best for their own children. None of the education experts ever asks kids how they feel we can improve education, esp. at higher levels of K-12.

[whoo689]

Bureaucrats and most politicians don't get it b/c they're usually operating at a level of gov't WAY too far from the people to know what's really going on. They can claim that "well-rounded" education is the way to go, but it's total nonsense. I never use art skills to my advantage cuz a) I hate art and b) I suck at it. It's not necessary for me. Specialization in a global economy is the way to go, not continuing a failed one-size-fits-all education system. Europe certainly doesn't do this.

[whoo689]

If you ask me, at best the local gov'ts should be the main controllers of the public school systems, with input and help from parents, teachers, etc. Not too much centralization by just school boards, principals, superintendents, and politicians. I mean, do public school boards REALLY give a shit about the average parent? Probably not. They're arrogant and think they know what's best, esp. without asking parents or students what they think. And why DON'T we ever ask students??

[bittergunowner12]

Yep, thats how it's always been, the school boards, bureaucrats and politicians on all levels have no idea what its like in those schools. They could care less about the students and parents, not to mention the Teacher's unions stall any progress.

[whoo689]

I'm always a little leery of believing what the so-called "education experts" claim about how we need MORE government, esp. federal, control over education. Bush claimed he was gonna make things better and introduce accountability into the system, but all he really did was provide yet another unfunded mandate, allow states to set their own test score standards (as low as possible), and double the size of the DOE. The bureaucrats can shove it; they know nothing. Communities know how to fix it.

[whoo689]

I'm admittedly a progressive on some economics, but on things like education, I'm not nearly as big on federal and extremely centralized control as Obama or Bush most of the Democrats, for that matter. Federal control just made things worse.  The DOE was a waste of time and money. It must be abolished, and states have to figure out standards that work for THEMSELVES to lower the achievement gap. Throwing money at the problem has been shown not to work. Yet Dems keep harping on and on about it

[whoo689]

One of my fav. claims by some of these 'education crusader' politicians is that "Education favors rich communities since they'll pay more in property taxes and receive more back in tax dollars per capita" as opposed to poor communities that don't pay as much in property tax. Now, that may be true, but it does not necessarily mean that "equalizing" funding for poor and rich areas is going to actually make education better automatically. Bureaucrats and politicians simply don't get it.

[whoo689]

It's probably the same study ("$10 return" lol) that he got the "oil companies aren't using 64 million acres of land" bullshit from.

[whoo689]

Preschool is a bunch of bullshit. Sure, some studies may claim that kids are just a LITTLE smarter when they go into Kindergarten than kids who don't go to Pre-K, but in the long run, it's pointless. These kids will either fall behind their un-pre-k peers, or the un-pre-k peers will get ahead. And if you're already a kid with a high IQ or just no learning disabilities at all, you'll be able to absorb the info relatively easy, with or without preschool. So it's just a waste of money.

[Mikashmak]

Agreed.

[StrykerDad54]

Ahh!...But Head Start was fair for only a few, and that's not fair enough. Forced..I mean Universal Pre-School is even more fair because its fair for everybody! What could be more fair than that??

Even better, it will give the State even more time to make the kids good little socialist robots!

[Bredac]

Statistics prove that it fails in educating our children...did you watch the entire video.

This idea is fucking ludacris.

[StrykerDad54]

Which idea? Head Start or Forced Pre-School?

[tickyul]

@StrykerDad54 Yes, Big Brother will tell you what is good for you. California is talking about requiring schools that hold fundraisers (say a bake sale) to put all of the proceeds from that fundraiser into a fund to be shared equally by all schools, this is to increase FAIRNESS for underfunded (read minority) schools. Watch this idea become law.

[StrykerDad54]

Oh, but don't you understand. The Government knows best. We're too stupid to have a say in how our children are taught.

Besides private enterprise causes competition. When there's competition some people loose and that's just not fair. Everything must be done uniformly and to government standard so everything is fair. Don't you want things to be fair?

[jp3711nc1]

Government cant run the economy how can they run our schools and health care.

[annilita]

I used to be an elementary school teacher. I taught in a wealthy distric & in a poor one. I taught kids who had preschool & ones who started school in K. I'll tell you what the number one indicator for a child's academic success was: parental involvement. It's simple. Parents who are involved with their child's learning & set clear expectations for their child's participation had kids with better grades regardless of demographics or involvement in early ed. Responsibility is never a popular idea

[ZiggyStardust2329]

My school just bought 4, $2500 plasma TV's for our 2 cafeteria's, and so far, they are completely useless (surprise!). Can't even hear them, always on ESPN...not like anyone bothers to watch TV during lunch. Also, there are $2500 "SmartBoards" in every classroom, often never or seldom used. So much waste in my stupid public school...and it looks like these morons want even more publicly funded BS shoved down our throats. I'm educating my kids in Singapore.

[bittergunowner12]

Yep, they just throw money at the problem why do  they do it? I don't know.

[Mikashmak]

Amen. (Parental Involvment) and warm parent responses.