I am fully on the bandwagon that Pre-K should be made universal and offered in all public schools. As education continues to move forward, as America tries to distinguish itself as a leader in the classroom, and as teachers experience the top-down approach to curriculum, it only makes sense that within the near future students are going to need to go to Pre-K in order to be ready and successful with the ever increasing objectives that students in Kindergarten are expected to meet. We already see the disadvantage students experience when they have not been to an academic preschool/daycare before entering Kindergarten. Giving students from all backgrounds access to begin their literacy learning in an academic setting earlier rather than later will benefit them for all of the school years to come.
With that, as nice as it would be to think that making Pre-K mandatory would shrink the achievement gap, it is completely unrealistic. Just as with educational objectives having things pushed down, the same would happen to affluent families and poverty stricken families. Currently, students who come from affluent backgrounds go to the "best" preschools that money can buy and students from poorer families may go to a family babysitter during the day or a head start program, that because of funding, cannot provide the same experiences as schools with higher funding. In this day and age, most parents hold jobs where they need their children to be taken care of during the day. Just as it is now, wealthy parents are able to send their children to great preschools while parents who are struggling to get by on their wages have no choice but to send their children to the most cost efficient setting. Even though I think that having Universal Pre-K would be a good thing, I do not foresee it doing anything to change the gap that we already see between students when they enter Kindergarten...we are just going to start seeing that gap arise at a younger and younger age and the next question to be asked will be 'what are the skills a student entering Pre-K needs to be successful?'
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ReplyDeleteI do agree that the gaps will always exist whether the US has universal pre-K or not. However, making pre-K mandatory and universal would bring it under the umbrella of the public school system. Even though we all know the many shortcomings of public schools, putting pre-K into the system would make it available for all children. Then, as school reform continues, and the status, wages, and quality of teachers increases :-), that would happen at the preschool level as well. Yes, parents will always have the option of sending their children to more exclusive private preschool programs, just as they can now at all levels, but at least the basics would be available to all. I don't see universal pre-K as the entire bridge for literacy gap, but it can be one part of it.
ReplyDeleteOn addressing needs at even younger ages, I recently saw a news report, one of those "Person of the Week" stories, about a principal in Detroit who ran a high school specifically for teen moms. In addition to keeping the mothers in school and helping them to graduate high school and continue on to college, the mothers took classes on how to care for their children, developing their early literacy and other skills. It was exciting to see the results for the mothers and their children.
So universal pre-K can be one part of the equation. Programs to help parents parent might be another. I think it's going to take multiple approaches. And we still will, sadly, probably have a gap. But maybe it will be narrower.
Here's a link to the story about teen moms.
ReplyDeletehttp://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/49641114/#49641114
Yes, the gaps would still be there because of the points that you made about school quality and other SES factors that do influenced the achievement gap. However; I do think that there is much to be gained by making Pre-K universal. There may not be as many gains as we would like, but there would be some. I have to believe that it would help in some way just by looking at the students that I have had in my kindergarten class. The students that come in the beginning of the year with no pre-K struggle for a lot longer than my students who come in with Pre-K experience. Not all of their pre schools were of high quality,m but they still got exposure to letters, numbers, and some kindergarten basics. Those students come in and by October are ready to be in a book. Many of my students who had no other school experience lack the letter knowledge to be successful in a book and it takes them longer to get to the same point as their peers. I don't think universal pre-K will fix everything, but it would help.
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