Continuing from G2A EITC regarding my view on How to Win the War on Poverty
Age and child appropriate curriculum, methods and expectations are critical.
However this in no way means that sending children to pre-school is a bad thing. It just means that those programs need to focus on age and child appropriate activities. Some academic focus, but mostly they focus on physical, social, problem solving, emotional, behavioral and other things that will help them develop well and learn effectively when they do enter kindergarten.
RDale Early Childhood Education
MN DOE Early Childhood Indicators of Progress by Topic
MN DOE School Readiness
Please remember that I am more concerned about the millions of unlucky kids in America who enter kindergarten without these basic capabilities. Which leads to them staying academically behind their luckier peers who were ready to start learning on day 1...
Now I have known Parents who want to push their children faster than their child's physical, social, cognitive, emotional, etc current capabilities... That is a totally different issue.
"Unfortunately focusing on only this one. "5.The welfare payments and service should be set up to make recipients work, learn, mature and improve their self sufficiency."Leaves a lot of kids hungry, homeless and poor...That's why excellent sex education, free birth control and even early term abortions are so important. Unfortunately those are three things that are not allowed in the Bible Belt...Well that and that they prefer to spend little on their early childhood education, K-12, and Higher Ed." G2A
"You need to see this-- not all of your solutions pass the test:Harvard Study Shows the Dangers of Early School Enrollment" JerryI agree with the Harvard results. Sending children into an academic setting before their brain development is where it needs to be to accomplish that curriculum can be frustrating and detrimental to the child. So we agree:
Age and child appropriate curriculum, methods and expectations are critical.
However this in no way means that sending children to pre-school is a bad thing. It just means that those programs need to focus on age and child appropriate activities. Some academic focus, but mostly they focus on physical, social, problem solving, emotional, behavioral and other things that will help them develop well and learn effectively when they do enter kindergarten.
RDale Early Childhood Education
MN DOE Early Childhood Indicators of Progress by Topic
MN DOE School Readiness
Please remember that I am more concerned about the millions of unlucky kids in America who enter kindergarten without these basic capabilities. Which leads to them staying academically behind their luckier peers who were ready to start learning on day 1...
Now I have known Parents who want to push their children faster than their child's physical, social, cognitive, emotional, etc current capabilities... That is a totally different issue.
50 comments:
This is where Mississippi is (or was, at least) so far ahead of Minnesota. There were private preschools all over. Parents sent their kids when they believed the kids were ready. There were 2-hour, 4-hour and all-day offerings, depending on what the parent thought was best at the child's age. The only drawback was that it was not, to my knowledge at the time, a state-subsidized offering. The big advantage was it was not a state-controlled offering.
That is kind of funny because most lucky kids in MN are either in full day daycare or part time pre-school learning social, physical, behavioral, some academic and other skills from the time they are 2 or 3.
It is mostly the unlucky kids who do not benefit from these normal things.
That is why most of us advocate for head start, ECFE and pre-school scholarships.
Yes, of course, and looking at the Harvard study casts doubt on that being a good idea. You are correct this is an inequitable benefit to the kids, but the solution does not seem to be government-paid and government-run schooling. Results for Head Start, for example, don't impress. But done as "scholarships" (so we don't have to say "vouchers") they work out much better.
Did you actually read details of the results?
"When starting school, younger children are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD"
It says nothing about school earlier being bad for kids... It just says that people should take a child's age into account when determining if the child's behavior is "age appropriate or if it is ADHD.
"The reasons for the rise in ADHD incidence are complex and multifactorial, Jena said. Arbitrary cutoff dates are likely just one of many variables driving this phenomenon, he added. In recent years, many states have adopted measures that hold schools accountable for identifying ADHD and give educators incentives to refer any child with symptoms suggesting ADHD for medical evaluation.“The diagnosis of this condition is not just related to the symptoms, it’s related to the context,” Jena said. “The relative age of the kids in class, laws and regulations, and other circumstances all come together.”
It is important to look at all of these factors before making a diagnosis and prescribing treatment, Jena said.
“A child’s age relative to his or her peers in the same grade should be taken into consideration and the reasons for referral carefully examined.”
Some new info on HS.
Who Benefits from Headstart?
And more info
And more info
Well, the Head Start coalition, or whoever they are, says what they do is beneficial over the long term, but cannot be found in the short term, and that there are other factors. Hardly a ringing endorsement from a highly vested interest. You will simply not convince me that a government "program" which fails 50% of its K-12 students is highly capable of helping 100% of its E-12 students succeed. It's neither logical nor reasonable.
I'm with the MN GOP legislature, insisting that the Early Ed money go into "scholarships" to be used anywhere, and at a time of the parents' choosing. Seems to me that is the surest way to get the desired result, without the nasty "side effects" found in the Harvard study.
No one can help one hundred percent of the children unless we hold parents accountable for fulfilling their responsibilities. Which you are against.
Now you do realize that it is often the Parent(s) who demand that their child go to school early... (ie reduce daycare costs, "my kid is smart", etc) Usually schools try to delay young students from coming early.
Or are advocating that Parent(s) be allowed to keep 6 year olds home from Kindergarten?
Which they actually are free to do if they want to home school.
I'm in favor of parents making reasonable /choices/ about the children's education, and making that possible by giving every parent the financial means of doing so. A good place to start would be with those who cannot afford Early learning for their kids, to better prepare them for the mandated public education they are unlikely to get, whether they have E scholarships or not. Logically, though, those who come off an E scholarship would be eligible for a K-12 follow-on, taking them out of the failing schools they likely are in.
Analogies always get us in trouble, but it's like this: You go to the mechanic and have the oil changed, tires rotated, etc. Then you drive down the road ten miles and hit a pothole that the government has left unfixed and unmarked, and it rips your wheels off. Was your money wisely spent?
Since most kids who are ready for kindergarten and have capable / responsible parent(s) do great in public schools, I think your analogy is definitely flawed...
Remember the old saying: the apple does not fall far from the tree unless it drops on a conveyor belt… :-)
Sure, so let us leave half of the kids, the unlucky ones, behind in schools where they get further behind and cannot compete with the lucky kids. Is that your idea?
No.
Let’s train their parent(s) and hold them accountable for doing their job.
Even as we do the same to the Schools, social workers, etc.
Ignoring the parental issues is not helping the kids.
Hold them accountable? HOW??? Shoot them if their kids don't succeed in a school that fails by any reasonable measure?
What creates more accountability than free market competition? All we need here is for the po' folk to have the same access to pre-school choice as the rich folks already get.
Many options are available beyond my usual proposal.
You keep telling me that mamas and papas are responsible for making babies...
Unfortunately you want to do nothing to ensure they live up to their responsibilities.
You just want to hand them tax payer money and hope that somehow they use it more responsibly than when they unintentionally made the baby they could not afford in the first place.
And your solution is to deny them the choice to have a child, maybe mandate abortions, and then deny them the opportunity (finance and information) to educate that child as their enlightened selves see fit, preferring that government take over raising the child. Welcome to the Komsomol, young Pioneer!
No actually, they get to have 1 or 2 kids...
They just don't get and keep more kids if they are already on government assistance.
Just like the farm programs... Government money comes with rules and expectations of behavior.
By the way, Sean is saying that you are all wet over here... :-)
They "get to have 1 or 2 kids"? So the first two are throw-aways and you would give them no help for these kids' educations?
Straighten the tree and maybe the saplings will have a better chance.
What will you straighten that tree WITH? A "good public education"? Or private preschool like my kids were fortunate enough to have, because I can afford it? What about the kids of parents who cannot? The heck with them? Or are you "holding them accountable" by denying their kids those advantages?
This discussion goes no where...
You keep wanting to straighten the sapling while ignoring the trees flaws...
And you are trying to demand that no flawed seeds be allowed to take root. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Nature doesn't listen to you. I've got three trees in my yard right now that I'm trying to save because they are NOT straight and are more interesting for it. And I care about the kids already born in the same way. They can't help the circumstances of their birth but deserve whatever "breaks" we can get for them. I suppose we could just shoot them-- it would certainly cut down the number of "unlucky kids" by your definition.
Sorry... I don't see children as flawed seeds...
It takes flawed Parent(s) to screw them up.
The "break" we need to give them is good responsible and capable parent(s).
OK, go ahead. I would rather focus on something realistically achievable, like offering every parent the same choices that "lucky kids" have to get a better education.
You seem to be suggesting that good, responsible and capable parents are a dime a dozen at the Kmart, and that their poverty will not prevent them from choosing a better school.
Good luck with that goal.
I always find it interesting that you obsess over equality of education...
While trying to prevent poor young adults from obtaining quality sex education, birth control and early abortion equality... :-)
Quality sex education would include at least some acknowledgement of the harms of casual sex, the 100% success rate and desirability of abstinence, their parents' moral viewpoint, and steering clear of the "... but if you do, use a condom" kind of encouragement. That you put all three in the same sentence is telling, since the first, done properly, would substantially reduce the need for the latter two, and the first two, done properly, would almost eliminate the need for the last. Apparently, you have no faith at all in our sex education program.
And I find it curious you do NOT want equality of education? It is almost as if you endorse the notion of just letting those "unlucky kids" stay home and watch TV, then handing them a $10o,000 check when they turn 18. Because we all know we're just wasting money trying to educate them.
If parents did their job... More kids would stay abstinent longer. Unfortunately many parents don’t and our society / the kids pay the cost.
Oh I forgot.
You think parent(s) should not be held accountable for much of anything....
Ignoring insult....
But we have now charged schools (actually, they demanded we do so) with teaching our kids about sex, and allowed them to do it while largely disregarding the values of "society" that is the rightful expectation of parents. How is it that children of "good responsible parents" come out of sex ed class thinking it's OK, so long as they use a condom?
And you are still missing the point. You are simply assuming that you want better for the kids than their parents do, and want to blame economically deprived parents for their poverty. You assume from that poverty that they are unfit parents. /snarc Well, whoopee do, aren't you just the cat's meow. /snarc
It is a statement of fact, you are only considering it an insult.
You say that parent(s) are responsible for their pregnancy / child(ren), and yet for some reason you insist on blaming schools for the very personal failures of these individuals... Even the fact that Parents failed to give their children religion, celibacy, supervision, etc.
Many of these baby mamas and dadas, have a very hard time managing their own lives. A life full of unintended pregnancies, failed marriages, multiple partners, addiction, etc.
I have no doubt that many of them love their children and want what is best for them, unfortunately that does not mean they are capable of enabling or providing it. Please remember that the Unlucky kids are the ones who come to Kindergarten unprepared. This is on them... Not the K-12 schools.
Your opinion, you are correct, is a fact. You do indeed hold that opinion. That does not make it true in any objective sense. My opinion is also a fact, that I consider it an insult. Turnabout is fair play.
You keep running down the rathole and then never acknowledging where it leads. The logical conclusion of your outrageous bias is that we should simply let these kids stay at home and then give them a check for $100,000 when they turn 18. The taxpayers save a ton of money, and the kids learn more watching Sesame Street and running the streets than the schools can teach them. Win-win. Besides, most of them will be dead or in prison before they are 25, or on welfare anyway, so why waste education dollars on them; they cannot learn.
As usual, we have wandered off-topic. My point was that early Ed is fine so long as it is a choice, of which the education cartel failing in our public schools is only one of the choices. And the taxpayers ought to either pick up the tab for all of it, or none of it, in which case the lucky kids will get it and the unlucky kids won't.
So...
What do you think parent(s) should be held accountable for?
How would you do this?
I think that rat hole exists only in your mind... Please remember that I am the one advocating for helping them learn from day 1. Where as you seemingly want to leave them for 5 years at the mercy of adults who have a hard time caring for themselves.
No... I think needs based pre-school scholarships are just fine. Of course as responsible tax payers we will want to ensure that the pre-school is licensed and somewhat qualified.
No doubt there is so much resistance to vouchers that the only way politically to get them is to start with those who otherwise could not afford the alternative and are most in need of it. I think preschools need a business license anyway, but beyond that I think government intrusion as to "qualified" would be more problematic than it is worth. Let the parents judge quality for themselves. My concern is that we have government mandating both attendance and detailed structure of the programs. That's like, well, one-size-fits-all health care. Everybody has their tonsillectomies at the same age.
And again. No parental accountability ideas...
are you kidding? I want to make parents responsible for spending $10,000 of the taxpayers' money. They are already responsible by law for sending the kid to school, and morally responsible for the child's upbringing. What else do you want?
And don't just tell me the child should never have been born. We've got a few million horses out there that have already left that barn.
So your answer to parent(s):
- failing to prepare their child adequately for Kindergarten
- and failing to support their child(ren) in keeping up with their homework
is to give them more control, responsibility and tax dollars...
When again do we get to some form of accountability where irresponsible, incapable and/or neglectful parent(s) experience some negative consequence?
I mean poorly raised children cost our society plenty... (ie criminal costs, welfare costs, etc) It seems that the ineffective parent(s) should be bearing some of that burden.
I propose to give them CHOICES. Helping the kids with homework when the teacher cannot teach (I've got a case of that right now) is not a blame I put on the parents.
Failing to put the kid in a preschool when the parents cannot afford said preschool is also not a blame I put on the parents.
You keep talking as if parents CHOOSE to be irresponsible, etc. by making bad choices when you have not offered them a good one. Blame the victim seldom helps. What, exactly, do you have against at least offering these parents "opportunity scholarships" for there kids, and see what happens?
These folks already have plenty of choices:
- Should I have poorly protected sex when I am not married?
- Should I / we keep the child?
- Should we get married or work to stay married?
- Should I work to learn to speak normal business English in front of my child and enroll them in free pre-schools?
- Should I attend ECFE and learn how to parent well?
- Should I take my child(ren) to play dates with similar aged children, libraries, museums, etc?
In order: Did you offer them a choice of sex education that emphasized abstinence?
Did you offer them free abortions and no social stigma?
Did you offer them an incentive to be married, or a disincentive?
Did you offer them a choice of free pre-schools for the child? Did you offer the Parents a "good" education when THEY attended public school?
Did you offer ECFE to them, at no charge, or even add an incentive to it? DID that government program deliver on its promise, or fail like everything else government does?
Did you offer me a choice of what I must NOT want, what is best for my child, so that you can later blame me? Or can I get some sort of assistance with things that may be difficult in my circumstances?
I remain eternally perplexed by how you intend to /make/ these parents "responsible" for living up to your standards, when by your own definition they are "incapable" of doing so. Will you execute the parents, or the kids, or both?
Now let's see...
- You are against making quality birth control access easier.
- You are against making it easier for them to choose first term abortion / morning after pill.
- You are against funding ECFE and other programs that these folks really need. (ie they had poor parenting models, they need to learn new habits)
And yet when the "questionable adults" have had 5 years to really screw up the kids, you want to give the "questionable adults" even more choices to fail at.
As for blaming the victim?
If someone is poor and chooses to rob a store, sell drugs, etc will you say that they are the victims? Or do you send them to jail?
These are mostly people who are 18+ years old who chose to have sex and keep the baby. By doing this, in my view they have accepted the responsibilities of learning how to be a good parent and to ensure they behave in such a manner... They have accepted the responsibility to drop off a Kindergarten ready child to our schools...
Unfortunately many of these folks are failing to fulfill these responsibilities and instead of holding them accountable for this failure... You want to let them screw up another choice...
if someone breaks the law, they must pay the appropriate penalty.
So Your solution is to make fornication illegal? What is the appropriate penalty under that law? how about childbirth, will that be illegal also? What penalty will you impose on parents unable to send their kids to a good preschool?
Jerry,
Being a responsible parent(s) and ensuring a child is ready for kindergarten requires no preschool at all, though it can help.
And please remember that I am all for needs based pre-school scholarships, and the RDale pre-school fees are on a sliding fee scale. As are ECFE and Headstart...
Personally I think that we should mandate that any parent(s) who receive welfare should be required to attend parenting courses and pass them.
I personally am fine with fornication, having babies and keeping babies if the parent(s) are willing and able to fulfill their responsibilities to the child(ren) and our society.
However if they fail the child(ren) and society, they should pay a consequence. An idea that you continually resist. You would rather reward them with more responsibility.
Please define the consequence for not living up to your standards of parenting.
"Personally I think that we should mandate that any parent(s) who receive welfare should be required to attend parenting courses and pass them."
Here is the sole difference between our positions. You would mandate, I would offer as a reasonable opportunity. And you would have the parents executed if they did not comply.
No executions required.
Maybe just a reduction in aid.
I think we are back where we started...
Jerry does not believe in holding parent(s) accountable for much.
Those adults can ignore or screw up those young minds as they wish.
I believe parents are responsible, whether they discharge that responsibility up to your standards (or mine, or anybody's) or not. The difference is I do not threaten them with summary execution to somehow force them to do better. What are you going to do, for example, with parents who are simply unable to do what they should-- never mind your standards? Has it occurred to you to offer them an attractive and realistic alternative to what they are doing, or not doing?
This has got to be one of the dumbest things I have ever read from you... Especially since you consistently blame the public schools for the failure of these parent(s).
"I believe parents are responsible, whether they discharge that responsibility up to your standards (or mine, or anybody's) or not."
responsible:
1a : liable to be called on to answer
b (1) : liable to be called to account as the primary cause, motive, or agent
a committee responsible for the job (2) : being the cause or explanation
mechanical defects were responsible for the accident
c : liable to legal review or in case of fault to penalties
2a : able to answer for one's conduct and obligations : TRUSTWORTHY
b : able to choose for oneself between right and wrong
And what should we do with...
"parents who are simply unable to do what they should"?
"teachers who are simply unable to do what they should"?
Should we just leave the kids in their care?
Or should we hold them accountable and force them to improve?
It seems that you are suffering from the bigotry of low expectations... I know these parent(s) can perform well if we truly hold them responsible, support ECFE, etc !!!
While you apparently want to keep low expectations so it does not hurt their feelings or something. No matter the negative consequences their children will bear for your in action.
I believe parents are responsible according to the definition. That does not make them able to meet your expectations, or anybody else's. If they cannot afford E-ed, how does that make them "incapable" or "bad" parents? If they are working three jobs and don't have time for "parent education," how is that bad choices or "irresponsible"? It's the opposite. It's called doing the best you can with what you have. If you want them to do better, give them something more, and make sure they know they have it and know how to use it. Why do you hate poor people, and expect so little of them?
By the way, there are "natural consequences" to bad parenting, but many are of the intangible variety like seeing your kids "go bad" or fail in life, or be unable to support you in your dotage. One could say the natural consequences of bad parenting tend to fall more on the kids, and in that it is very similar to bad education. I will not say bad teachers, though that is a part of it, I will just say it is a bad education /system/ which does not take each kid to their full potential, whatever that is. They are "our" employees and we need and are entitled to "hold them responsible," while the parents are NOT our employees and shame on you for thinking they are. I am OK, however, with schools suffering the "natural consequences" of failure, by losing their customers to the competition (or having to improve so as NOT to lose customers).
But some people still insist that the failure of the schools is all the parents' fault and that we should never, ever, hold schools accountable.
If they are collecting welfare, medicaid, etc we do have the right to require things of them. The government does this with farm subsidies.
Then parent(s) can choose if excepting the money is worth the burden.
Please remember that you are the one who wants to
- cut their benefits and make them work 3 shifts.
- cut their medicaid or ACA subsidies
- cut their housing benefits
- cut ECFE, Headstart, etc
I am happy to increase these if we add performance requirements. No child should have to go to school hungry because their parent(s) is a failure.
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