Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > March > 07
Tuesday, March 7, 2006
The best way to teach young kids
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel today is wrapping up a fine three-day series on the explosion of interest in state-paid pre-school nationally. The final story in the package looks at Oklahoma, which is a pioneer offering free pre-school to all four year olds who want it.
This is an interesting trend. The brain research over the past 15 years is a slam dunk — you can’t wait until age five to begin teaching your children. The years from 0 to 5 are crucial to the developing brain. Involved, educated parents or a good pre-school, for instance, can mean a a child is exposed to millions more words at an early eage helping them buildi their vocabularies and grow their language skills. And yet, our education system doesn’t begin until kindergarten, when some kids are already woefully behind.
But while there is a general consensus that more education earlier is a good idea, the question of who should provide it, how we ensure instruction is high quality and how to pay for it are unsettled.
Right now, pre-school in every state is a hodge-podge of public and private child centers and in home care. It takes a lot of work to find quality pre-school care for your kids.
But centralizing, standardizing and expanding pre-school brings a new set of problems. One, of course, is cost. How will states pay if they want to expand publicly funded pre-school options down to age four or even lower?
And finally, with state money comes higher expectations for quality and accountability. Some are already talking about the implications for testing very young children.
One final thought. While it seems sensible that more pre-school helps kids grow academically and should improve their life chances, there isn’t great research to demonstrate this is true or show us what types of programs do the best job. There are three big studies along these lines, but all three are old and limited in important ways. There is a real need for more research in this area.
What do you think about states paying to expand pre-school?
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Young Children
