Preschool Consumers: Be In The Know

Letter to the Editor of the Holland Sentinel

From:Yvette Odell
Kindermusik of Holland
616-392-7182
http://holland.kindermusik.net
www.kindermusikofholland.blogspot.com
singandtwirl@sbcglobal.net

Dear Editor,

Parents should be encouraged to make educated decisions for their pre-school aged children concerning academics and socialization. The narrow question of "Which preschool program is best?" ignores the bigger issue of "Is preschool the best choice for my child?"

There are studies on all sides of the latter question, some saying results of beginning education earlier are beneficial, others say preschool is the best choice only for "at risk" children, still others say there are no lasting benefits seen in children once they are in 3rd to 6th grade and finally there are studies that point to evidence that shows preschool experience may have a detrimental effect on children's social and emotional development.

Parents are their children's best teacher. As an educator myself, I would encourage parents not to rush right out with the crowd to stand in preschool registration lines without carefully considering if preschool would better suit their child better than quality time with the parents. Otherwise it's simply a reaction to peer pressure and media views. I see preschool as a business and the Holland Sentinel's front page article of Feb. 8, 2008 "A Head Start On Learning" as free advertisement for those preschool businesses!

Notes:

1.Head Start benefits at risk children but not those not at risk.

Researchers Darcy Olsen and Lisa Snell surveyed the research on early education polices in a new report for the Reason Foundation titled Assessing Proposals for Preschool and Kindergarten: Essential Information for Parents, Taxpayers, and Policymakers. What they found should make universal preschool advocates think twice.

....“The studies conducted on mainstream children generally do not show benefits from early education programs,” they explain, pointing to a 2005 RAND Corporation analysis which found that “children participating in preschool not targeted to disadvantaged children were no better off in terms of high school or college completion, earnings, or criminal justice involvement than those not going to any preschool.” While slim research evidence points to benefits for disadvantaged children, giving subsidies to middle- and upper-class children is just not justified by research.

www.rand.org.

2.No lasting benefits: the benefits of Head Start Programs tend to “fade out” by second or third grade.

McGroder, Sharon M., “Head Start: What Do We Know About What Works”—U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Lisa Snell, Director of Education and Child Welfare at the Reason Foundation, in her article titled “Don’t Expect Long-Term Gain From Early Education Money,” discusses the absurdity of Michigan considering another investment of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to public prekindergarten programs that just aren’t showing any return. Snell writes in her article that “policymakers [should not] be focusing scarce education resources on programs that can [not] make a lasting difference.” She reinforced her statements by quoting from The National Center for Education Statistics Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, which found that there were no “substantive differences in children’s third-grade achievement relative to the type of kindergarten program (full-day vs. half-day) they attended.” The article also mentions the California-based RAND Corp.’s December 2006 report, “School Readiness, Full-Day Kindergarten, and Student Achievement,” which found that children in the full-day kindergarten programs were showing decreased mathematics skills by the time they were in fifth grade, than those who had only attended a part-day kindergarten program. Snell, Lisa. “Don’t Expect Long-Term Gain from Early Education Money,” published by The Michigan Education Report, Fall 2007 Issue.

“Significant, immediate gains in cognitive test scores, socioemotional test scores, and health status, (though) in the long-run, cognitive and socioemotional test scores of former Head Start students do not remain superior to those of disadvantaged children who did not attend Head Start.”

3.Detriments of preschool:

"We find that attendance in preschool centers, even for short periods of time each week, hinders the rate at which young children develop social skills and display the motivation to engage classroom tasks, as reported by their kindergarten teachers.....For children from lower-income homes, additional hours in center programs does not further slow social development while it does advance cognitive gains (Figure E2). But for children from higher-income families, additional hours in care do further slow behavioral growth, while at the same time failing to improve cognitive outcomes relative to moderate attendance of 15 to 30 hours per week. The benefits of longer hours of care are clearly greater for children from lower-income families."

The Influence of Preschool Centers on Children's Development Nationwide

Susanna Loeb
Margaret Bridges
Daphna Bassok
Bruce Fuller
Russ Rumberger

Stanford University
University of California

Presentation at the Association for Policy Analysis and Management
Washington, D.C. November 4, 2005

This paper has undergone peer review and will appear in Economics of Education Review.