Doubting the Day Care Dogma

Most people--myself included--will tell you that they have a coherent belief system.  They will argue that their world view is well reasoned and fact based. I've often wondered why the subsequent world views are so different.  I think one of the reasons for the differences is that many of the "facts" that underlie the world views are simply statements of faith.

For example, it is an article of faith or many people that state sponsored, high-quality preschool is good for children.  For them, the question is not whether the state should pay for all-day kindergarten, or pre-school, the question is only whether or not the state can afford the expense.  Advocates will argue that the expense is worth it because it's an investment.  The debate will revolve around those who are willing to invest in children and those who aren't.

But what about the underlying article of faith?  Some, like Senator John Huppenthal, have dared to stand up and question whether all day kindergarten benefits children at all.  They are usually vilified for daring to question the dogma. 

It's hard to read this op ed piece from the Wall Street Journal and not conclude that guys like Huppenthal have a point.

In the last half-century, U.S. preschool attendance has gone up to nearly 70% from 16%. But fourth-grade reading, science, and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) -- the nation's report card -- have remained virtually stagnant since the early 1970s.

Comments

[todd]

The claim is that k-12 is so messed up, spending money on universal preschool is a waste. Maybe that is true, but I wonder what their fix is for k-12. At they end, they claim all parent's deserve the option, which the Obamas have chosen, to send their kids to a $20,000 a year private middle school. Somehow I bet Dalmia and Snell would argue that increasing k-12 spending isn't the answer either. But if it is good enough for the Obamas, why can't every school cost $20,000 per child? Then we might actually see improvements in public education.

[North Valley Republican]

Dems will argue for more funding for schools, claiming it will provide a better education. I'm not so sure.

Many excellent private schools in the Valley cost much less than the $9K we spend on public schools per child in Arizona each year.

In Washington, D.C., the cost per child for public education is the highest in the country. Performance is dismal.

Money is important, but it is not the most important thing - not by a mile. Sen. Huppenthal is right, rigor, not all-day K, is the solution to education. Studies all show the benefits of all day-K are gone by the 4th grade. What do people not understand about that?

[todd]

Spending on regular instruction directly affects student performance. This has been shown in study after study. Why do people not understand that?

[Alex]

Greg,

The figures you cite are only further evidence that children should be taken out of the home at an even earlier age and institutionalized in some form of government schooling so we can finally see an increase in those scores. Get ready for the Brave New World.

[Special Agent Johnny Utah]

This is based on reading only the excerpt, but I would argue that not everything else was equal. It's a multivariate world, and you have to look at the other influences on student performance, those acting independently of preschool attendance.

[Mesa Republican George]

My life experience has taught me that the number one factor in determining how well a child is educated is the type of environment that exists in his or her home. No amount of money, no matter how early in the child's life it is spent, can replace two good parents who love their kid and encourage him or her to do their best. My evidence might be anecdotal but I'd bet my retirement that an unbiased study would support it.

[Christy]

Money isn't everything, but it is something. Right now, preschool is a hard sell and you've all hit on it. It's a matter of rigor and, frankly, the public schools haven't shown the type of impact we would like because there are more mandates and less money. We've increased math and science requirements, we have No Child Left Behind, the list goes on. We need our K-12 system adequately funded -- studies have shown that it would take $1.2 billion just to come to the median, deregulate the system, and hold our schools accountable. Only then will there be any trust from the public to branch out.

[Ken]

The best alternative is for the child to stay home with one of the parents (usually the mom, but could be the dad) and play, be read to, and increase vocabulary, motor skills, etc by simply being a normal child.

From the studies I've seen, early childhood formal education leaves no positive academic results, so why do it -- perhaps "free" babysitting for the 2-worker family or the single mom and extra funding for the education establishment?

BTW, I never went to kindergarten. It was not available but neither was TV. But my parents read to me, I played with my sister and neighborhood kids, etc. Times have changed in so many ways.

[John Huppenthal]

The Feds spent over $60 million collecting the Early Childhood Data. When the Arizona Republic asked me to write a column at the start of the All-Day K debate, studies had not yet been performed on all the data but the data was published in tables. The tables showed that all-day k students had lost ground to half day k students on measures of motivation, pro-social behavior and anti-social behavior.

The Rockefeller and Ford foundations later gave a $5 million grant to the RAND corporation for a complete analysis.

RAND found that the fifth graders who had attended all-day kindergarten had emotional deficits relative to the half-day kindergarteners. Emotional deficits that could be statistically tied to kindergarten attendance.

In other words, it appears that the emotional deficits from all-day kindergarten might be permanent.

RAND also found that the all-day kindergarteners, who started the study a sliver ahead of the half-day kindergarteners, tested below the half-day kindergarteners on both math and reading.

There is a deafening silence from the educational establishment on these findings.

When we started the all-day k debate, our chief executive implied that students who attended all-day k would rise from the 50th percentile to the 67th percentile by the third grade (AZ REP).

This year's third graders tested at the 51st percentile after testing at the 51st percentile last year.

Where do we go to get our refund? $200 million per year. More important, who is warning parents that all-day kindergarten does perhaps permanent emotional damage to the typical child experiencing it?

The studies that were cited when we were actively debating all-day k have now disappeared from bibliographies. The Weiss study had obvious math errors and the Cryan study was overturned in nearly every respect by the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study.

The effects were such that they invite the next question. If full day kindergarten is bad for the typical child, is half day kindergarten half as damaging?

[ron]

John, you wrote, "RAND found that the fifth graders who had attended all-day kindergarten had emotional deficits relative to the half-day kindergarteners. Emotional deficits that could be statistically tied to kindergarten attendance.

In other words, it appears that the emotional deficits from all-day kindergarten might be permanent."

I have been a shool counselor. I teach counseling classes to undergraduate and graduate students. I provide leadership to a counseling program at an agency. Emotional deficits? What kind of psychobabble, is this? Children spend 8 hours or less at school. Who is accounting for the other 16 hours? There are variables here that are not being accounted for. Please! You are saying that 8 hours of kindergarten screws with a kid's feelings?

When I was a school counselor, I and the staff agreed we can only address the child's behavior during his or her time with us; we have no control over the rest of the child's day. If anything, we end making sure what is happening in the other 16 hours is not negatively impacting his or her school performance. In fact, I taught children how to compartimentalize their lives; a skill many HR people have to teach to new workforce members: "You had a fight with your boyfriend last night, leave it at the front door." We taught the children: "Leave your parents' divorce issue at the door, you have to give your full attention to the math lesson." This is a valuable life skill for a child to learn.

I would argue that the reason we have so many emotionally unintelligent children is because we have many parents who lack emotional intelligence. We know from reliable research that the age a person begins using alcohol or street drugs or engages in regular sexual activity is the age that the child stop growing emotionally. We have many people walking around in our society who started used alcohol and/or marijuana at the age of 13. Given this research we have a lot of 30 year olds who are emotional 13 year olds raising 10 year olds (fifth graders). Don't blame the school system for these "emotionally deficient" children.

[Nick S.]

Its a jobs program for the teacher's union. Its not about kids, its about political power.

[Lance E]

Given that "preschool" frequently involves no schooling whatsoever, I prefer the term "daycare." Provided their parent is not a crackhead or someone else on society's margins, children do better with individualized attention from a parent than they do in daycare. This will be obvious to anyone without rigid ideological objections to the idea. Some families have no other option and others choose daycare as an option. That is their own business and loudly condemning them achieves nothing positive. However, there is no data whatsoever indicating that the public school system can meet children's daycare needs better than the private sector and even if there were, there is no just reason why all parents should be compelled to subsidize free daycare for some.

[ron]

John,

I figured it out - 'emotionally deficient' is pc for 'immature'! :)

[Mesa Republican George]

ron,

I think you missed John's point. It's not that the schools cause kids to be emotionally damaged, its that sending children away from their parents for a majority of each day at such an early age does emotional damage. I agree that there may be other factors at work here, including parents with their own problems, but I don't think you should get your hackles up at what John said. He wasn't insulting our school system per se, he was suggesting that kids don't need to start there as early as the Guv and those who want free day care would like.

[Mother Teresa]

Greg's post on this subject is missing something important -- the explanation of why he didn't stay home with his kids when they were preschool age.

[Greg Here]

Greg Here: Actually, my wife quite her high paying job when our second child was born. She has been a stay at home mom for 12 years. No one raises your kids better than you do.

[ron]

MRGeorge,

The Rand study that John quotes isn't talking about the effects of Daycare (birth to Kindergarten)- it is talking about kindergarten (5 years olds) who presumably could have been raised by their mothers in their homes.

[John Huppenthal]

In collecting the Eary Childhood data on the 20,000 students, they also took measures of motivation, prosocial behavior and anti-social behavior in addition to creating some very sophisticated testing.

Teachers and parents filled out these measures.

These were amped up versions of what Cryan did in Ohio. Except that the results were the opposite of Cryan's results.

Cryan set out to prove that all day k was good for children on a budget of less than a million.

The National Center for Education Statistics set out to precisely measure the affect of kindergarten on children. And, they had a budget of over $60 million ($64 million at last count.)