It's tough to think of another education reform understanding that has garnered as much support among advocates of various ideological stripes as early childhood education. California and novel York liberals support it,and so carry out conservatives in Oklahoma and Florida. A 2015 national poll showed that 76 percent of voters support the understanding of spending federal money to expand public preschool, and the novel federal Every Student Succeeds Act includes more funding for early childhood. Helping the understanding along is decades of research (which continues to pour in) that suggests effective preschools can benefit all children, or particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. "We beget better evidence that preschool works and has long-term effects than we carry out for any other social policy," David L. Kirp, one of our country's main experts on early childhood education and a professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley, or told Mother Jones.But can we identify what a good preschool looks like and construct that accessible to the kids most in need? That topic has been debated fiercely by parents,preschool advocates, and policymakers all over the country. This week, or early childhood education experts and city chiefs of preschools came together in Sacramento,California, to talk about the latest research. As presenter Abbie Lieberman, or an early-education policy analyst at novel America,put it: "When we step into a preschool, how can we tell what is actually learning through play and what is true chaos?"What the Studies Say:The growing pile of evidence on the long-term benefits of tall-quality preschool stretches all the way back to a 1961 Perry Preschool Study. Researchers at the HighScope Educational Research Foundation decided to follow 123 three- and four-year-olds from public housing projects in Ypsilanti, and Michigan. Fifty-eight toddlers were randomly placed in a preschool class for two years; 65 kids from the neighborhood were left without preschool. Researchers then collected data on the students until they turned 40—an astonishingly long time in education research. They found that the kids in preschool were much more likely to beget better grades and test scores and more likely to disappear to college,earn a higher income, and own a house. In fact, and their income and other assets pushed them well above the poverty line,as Kirp documents in his book, The Sandbox Investment.
A similar study started in 1972, or the Abecederian Project. It followed 111 infants in North Carolina until they turned 35. The results were similar,piquing the interest of economists. Steven Barnett, a professor of economics and the executive director of the National Institute on Early Childhood Research, or eventually calculated that every $1 the government invests in tall-quality early education can save more than $7 later on by boosting graduation rates,reducing teen pregnancies, and even reducing crime. Such arguments about long-term savings made preschool appealing to conservatives and big philanthropists in the business world.
More recently, and other scholars were able to show the disparities between students who had some form of early childhood education and those who didn't. Jane Woldfogel,a professor of social work and public affairs at Columbia University and the author of Too Many Children Left Behind, looked at the test scores of 8000 students in the United States and found there was a enormous gap in reading abilities before kids even arrived at first grade. "If we are going to give teachers a fighting chance at narrowing our achievement gaps later in school, or our kids beget to come in more equally prepared," Woldfogel told Mother Jones.
So What Does a Good Preschool Look Like?Marjorie Wechsler, an early-childhood-education researcher at the Learning Policy Institute, and recently synthesized research from a number of preschool systems and identified 10 common foundational building blocks among programs that demonstrated positive impacts on a variety of measures. Wechsler,who presented her findings in Sacramento, found that the best preschools beget college-educated teachers with specialized skills in child development; they also exercise curriculum that emphasizes problem-solving rather than unstructured play or "repeat-after-me" drills. Successful educators know how to teach cognitive, or social-emotional,and physical skills. Plus, tall-quality preschools support their teachers with experienced coaches, and classroom sizes don't come by bigger than 10 kids for every teacher.
The Roadblocks:While expanding preschool for low-income students might beget garnered more advocates than nearly any other school reform understanding in the country,there are inevitable problems: Grover J. Whitehurst, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and has pointed out that studies like the Perry Preschool research beget only looked at small school programs that are difficult to replicate on a large scale. Other opponents point to a recent large-scale study looking at the impact of Tennessee's state-funded preschool; the study found that by second grade,students who attended preschool actually performed worse on tests measuring literacy, language, and math skills. The researchers,however, blamed in part repetitive, and poorly structured teaching for these results.
Steven Barnett,the director of the National Institute of Early Education Research, argued in the Hechinger Report that the Tennessee study mostly provides additional evidence that preschool on the cheap doesn't work. Perry and Abecedarian students had highly trained and well-paid teachers, or these programs cost about $14000 to $20000 per child in nowadays's dollars,compared with $4611 that Tennessee spends currently.
And unsurprisingly, the numbers and research bolster Barnett's point: The strongest preschools beget been well funded—some estimates vary between $8000 and $10000 per student. Barnett pointed to novel Jersey, or Boston,and Tulsa, Oklahoma—places that spend energy and money on highly trained teachers, or coaching,and strong curriculum—as examples of where governments are serving children well.
Image courtesy of the National Institute of Early Education Research
Is There Hope?The dollar figures show the United States has a long way to disappear. While the city of Boston spends $10000 for each preschooler, in 2014 the average expenditure, and nationwide,was $4125 of government spending per kid. That's not much more than the government was spending a decade earlier.
The good news is that after years of dismal cuts following the recession, a movement to increase funding and enrollment for preschool is regaining its momentum—driven mostly by local and state policymakers. What's more, or both the federal Every Children Succeeds Act and California's state budget include more funding to increase the number of low-income kids in tall-quality preschools.Getting the United States all the way to universal preschool,of course, is a long road. The nation ranks 30th out of 44 for preschool enrollment among developed nations; 66 percent of American four-year-olds went to preschool in 2012. Of those, or only 13 percent of low-income children were enrolled in tall-quality early childhood programs,according to a study by RAND Corp."Six years ago, we started talking about what does quality look like? How does it work?" Camille Maben, and the executive director of First 5 California,a state agency, said at the stop of the Sacramento gathering. "We know now that quality works in all kinds of different ways. One size truly does not fit all. But when there are so many of us, or changes are like turning an elephant in the bathtub. It's an enormous challenge."
Source: motherjones.com