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In this section, you'll find editorials, legislation, public policy and trends on issues relating to preschool, pre-kindergarten, childcare and the push toward universal preschool education. Particularly of note are articles concerning the states claim of a compelling interest in compulsory preschool education. Visit often for the latest preschool news.
Universal Preschool Could Become Reality In California
Should every child in California have free access to a preschool? Four of the leading gubernatorial candidates think so, making it possible that the Golden State could become the first in the nation to offer universal preschool.
"Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, State Treasurer John Chiang and former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin all agreed that universal preschool was essential not only for children, but for the state," according to a report by edsource.org.
December 17, 2017
[More Results from patch.com]
Leading Democratic candidates for California governor back universal preschool
In what would be a significant shift from Gov. Jerry Brown's position on early education, the four leading Democratic candidates running to replace him next year say they are committed to offering universal preschool in California.
Under Gov. Brown's watch, California has increased the number of subsidized preschool and child care slots, as well as access to an early kindergarten grade called transitional kindergarten for some 4-year-olds. But much to the frustration of early education advocates, Brown has rejected pressures to expand preschool to all low-income 4-year-olds, mainly citing the costs of such an expansion as the major impediment. In a setback for advocates two years ago, Brown vetoed what was called "The Preschool for All" legislation (Assembly Bill 47).
December 17, 2017
[More Results from edsource.org]
New Research Says Pre-K Works : NPR Ed : NPR
In 2001, not long after Oklahoma had adopted one of the nation's first universal pre-K programs, researchers from Georgetown University began tracking kids who came out of the program in Tulsa, documenting their academic progress over time.
In a new report published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management today, researchers were able to show that Tulsa's pre-K program has significant, positive effects on students' outcomes and well-being through middle school.
December 12, 2017
[More Results from npr.org]
How happy you are as a parent is directly tied to one very surprising thing
Study after study has shown that having children does not make people happier. In fact, a so-called "happiness gap" exists between people who have kids and people who don't, and parents often pay a "happiness penalty" when they have children, research has
Recently, researchers studied data from 22 countries and found that the United States has the largest happiness shortfall between parents and non-parents, even larger than the gap found in similar nations like Great Britain and Australia. And in other developed Western countries, like Norway, Finland, Sweden, Hungary and Russia, the gap didn't exist at all. In fact, sometimes parents were even happier than non-parents.
July 31, 2016
[More Results from mnn.com]
How Much Money Do Pediatricians Really Make From Vaccines?
If you want to be sure your pediatrician has your child's best interest, this is mandatory reading. Pediatricians around the country have begun refusing to accept families who opt out of some or all vaccines.
So how much money do doctors really make from vaccines? The average American pediatrician has 1546 patients, though some pediatricians see many more. The vast majority of those patients are very young, perhaps because children transition to a family physician or stop visiting the doctor at all as they grow up. As they table above explains, Blue Cross Blue Shield pays pediatricians $400 per fully vaccinated child. If your pediatrician has just 100 fully-vaccinated patients turning 2 this year, that's $40,000.
June 20, 2016
[More Results from wellnessandequality.com]
Mark Dayton continues universal preschool push
Universal preschool supporters say the uncertainty Gabriela Bazan faced about whether her child would get an early learning scholarship is a prime example of why Minnesota needs a public program for all four-year-olds.
The South St. Paul mother of four, told a group of state lawmakers that after watching one of her older boys struggle in elementary school she knew preschool was important for her youngest son, four-year-old Alexandro. But she worried about whether she would qualify for help to afford the newly expanded preschool program at Kaposia Education Center.
April 2, 2016
[More Results from twincities.com]
LETTER: Children better at home than in pre-school
I want to protest in the strongest possible terms two stories in the Oct 14 News by Tyler Olsen; they look very much like a one-two punch of propaganda from a malignant campaign to force so-called early childhood 'education' on British Columbia families.
The first story was headlined Number of 'vulnerable' children entering school on the rise, with the sub-head Increase related to lack of core 'emotional and social competencies'" The 'vulnerabilities' and 'emotional and social competencies' are vaguely explained as a lack of self-control; but there is no indication of any research that identifies the cause of that lack.
November 9, 2015
[More Results from abbynews.com]
Delayed Kindergarten Enrollment Dramatically Reduces ADHD In Children, Study Shows
Delaying kindergarten enrollment for one year shows significant mental health benefits for children. Researchers found that a one-year delay in enrolling a child in kindergarten dramatically reduces inattention and hyperactivity at age seven.
Researchers found that children who were held back from kindergarten for as little as one year showed a 73 percent reduction in inattentiveness and hyperactivity compared to children sent the year earlier, according to this new study on kindergarten and mental health.
November 7, 2015
[More Results from inquisitr.com]
Another Study Indicates that Universal Preschool is Essentially Useless
A new study out of Tennessee is indicating that the universal preschool program in the state may be a complete waste of money that doesn't actually benefit the children enrolled and may actually harm them.
This study has similar conclusions as one in Quebec that examined low-cost daycare programs, as well as studies that suggest that Head Start has little to no academic benefits for the children who enroll in the program. In many cases, putting a child into a low-standards pre-k classroom led to a worse outcome than a child who didn't receive any care.
October 27, 2015
[More Results from townhall.com]
Let's Experiment With Universal Preschool
I'm a considerable fan of early childhood education. Megan McArdle says she's tentatively in favor too, but "I am opposed to blind boosterism of such programs, the kind that confidently predicts marvelous results from thin empirical evidence.
I would like to see us experiment more with these programs. But the key word here is "experiment." Which is to say we should: Try more programs....Take the programs that seem to work and scale them up to a larger group....Rinse and repeat [until we figure out what, if anything, works.] That would be the sane, sensible way to go about constructing policy in an important area.
September 24, 2015
[More Results from motherjones.com]
Universal preschool may help parents more than children - and that's okay
As a small child, I vaguely recall having attended a Montessori preschool in Brooklyn, which was loud, lively and colorful.
One day, a classmate made a reference to his "parents," an English word with which I, an imperfectly bilingual 3-year-old, was unfamiliar, and he explained that he was referring to his mother and father, words that I did understand. And so my vocabulary grew, in fits and starts. Pretty soon, I started attending kindergarten at a public elementary school, where I talked my way out of chores like putting away my things in my cubbyhole by protesting with a convincingly exasperated "but I'm only 4 years old." Though that doesn't sound like much of an excuse to my wizened old ears three decades later, it seems to have worked at the time.
July 16, 2015
[More Results from blogs.reuters.com]
The Case Against Universal Preschool
Universal prekindergarten sounds like a good thing. Early education for all! Why not? Anything for the kids.
Universal pre-k already exists-or is close to existing-in a number of states, including Oklahoma, Florida, and, most recently, New York. And given the appeal of the idea, it's no wonder "preschool for all" emerged as a key talking point this election season, a year or so after President Barack Obama proposed a $75 billion federal universal pre-k program that involves partnerships with states.
July 15, 2015
[More Results from theatlantic.com]
924 early childhood bills introduced in state legislatures this year
This year, the 50 state legislatures introduced a total of 924 early education-related proposals that included everything from statewide universal preschool to quality rating systems.
Of the bills that did pass, most represented small moves toward making public preschool and early childhood care available to more students and diversifying the programs available.
July 13, 2015
[More Results from educationdive.com]
Slideshow: As California advocates look to expand pre-K, Denmark shows how universal preschool works
KPCC's Early Childhood Correspondent Deepa Fernandes visited Denmark and Norway recently and talked to parents and educators about their countries' free and subsidized child care.
Support for universal preschool is spreading around the country, but relatively few places have set up systems where all kids from infants to 5-year-olds can attend child care. That's not the case in Scandinavian countries like Norway and Denmark where early child care for all has been around for decades and is taken for granted by taxpayers.
July 7, 2015
[More Results from scpr.org]
The Evidence on Universal Preschool
Calls for universal preschool programs have become commonplace, reinforced by President Obama's call for "high-quality preschool for all" in 2013. Any program that could cost state and federal taxpayers $50 billion per year warrants a closer look.
This report reviews the major evaluations of preschool programs, including both traditional programs such as Head Start and those designated as "high quality." These evaluations do not paint a generally positive picture. The most methodologically rigorous evaluations find that the academic benefits of preschool programs are quite modest, and these gains fade after children enter elementary school.
October 15, 2014
[More Results from cato.org]
Forget universal preschool. We need a 13th grade.
In education circles, universal preschool is hot. But it's only half the answer. If we really want to raise a generation of employable kids, we need universal 13th and 14th grades too.
As taxpayers, we've decided to subsidize the education of every American child between the ages of 5 and 18. But current education funding structures reflect a bygone industrial age, when a high school diploma met or in some cases exceeded the needs of the local and national economies. Now, neither preschool nor college is a luxury, and families shouldn't have to pay for the schooling that keeps society running.
June 12, 2014
[More Results from washingtonpost.com]
Event : for the kids -- Nature's Homeschoolers
This once-a-month series of lessons is designed to supplement homeschool curriculum with nature-based science.
Lessons include hands-on activities and information about the plants and animals found in the Saratoga Sand Plains. The lessons will be broken into two sections: the K-4th grade children's program will be held from 10-11:00 AM and 5-8th grade children's program will be held from 2-3:00 PM.
April 28, 2014
[More Results from poststar.com]
Former Livermore preschool employees testify about abuses
The owners of a Livermore preschool shut down last year covered babies' faces with blankets as they slept and occasionally used those blankets to tie them to the crib, two former employees told a judge Thursday during a preliminary hearing.
Lida Sharaf, 33, and her sister, Nazila Sharaf, 36, owners of Sunnyside Preschool in Livermore, were arrested in April 2013 on suspicion of child abuse after a former employee filed complaints about the facility that included swaddling infants so tightly that they could not move their arms or legs.
March 21, 2014
[More Results from contracostatimes.com]
Thousands of preschool kids face suspension
Even preschoolers are getting suspended from U.S. public schools - and they're disproportionately black, a trend that continues up through the later grades.
Advocates have long said that get-tough suspension and arrest policies in schools have contributed to a "school-to-prison" pipeline that snags minority students, but much of the emphasis has been on middle school and high school policies. This data shows the disparities starting in the youngest of children.
March 21, 2014
[More Results from usnews.com]
The Science of the Great Molasses Flood
In 1919 a wave of syrup swept through the streets of Boston. Fluid dynamics explains why it was even more devastating than a typical tsunami.
"Send all available rescue vehicles and personnel immediately," he yelled, "there's a wave of molasses coming down Commercial Street!" More than 7.5 million liters of molasses surged through Boston's North End at around 55 kilometers per hour in a wave about 7.5 meters high and 50 meters wide at its peak. All that thick syrup ripped apart the cylindrical tank that once held it, throwing slivers of steel and large rivets in all directions. The deluge crushed freight cars, tore Engine 31 firehouse from its foundation and, when it reached an elevated railway on Atlantic Avenue, nearly lifted a train right off the tracks.
January 15, 2014
[More Results from scientificamerican.com]
San Mateo County officials recommend universal preschool
Deeming early childhood education an effective shield against crime, the income gap and high school truancy, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors recently passed a recommendation to funnel $5 million in Measure A tax revenue...
The proposal - which originated from District 2 Supervisor Carole Groom and a broad coalition of teachers, child care workers and policy researchers - intends to solve a learning achievement gap that's become a scourge in the county, with 42 percent of third-graders not reading proficiently.
June 25, 2013
[More Results from sfexaminer.com]
Is Preschool Executive Function Causally Related to Academic Achievement?
The primary objective of this study was to re-evaluate the well-established result that preschoolers' performance on executive function tasks are positively associated with their performance on academic achievement tests.
The current study replicated the previously established concurrent associations between children's performance on EF tasks and academic achievement tests. Specifically, children's performance on measures of inhibitory and motor control were positively associated with their performance on tests of reading, writing, and mathematics achievement (rs = .2 -.5); moreover, although diminished in magnitude, most of these associations held up even after including an earlier measure of academic achievement as a covariate (rs = .1 -.3).
June 2, 2013
[More Results from ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
Maine May Be Next State To Offer Universal Preschool
While President Obama's proposal to make preschool universally accessible is being pushed on the federal level, six states in the country - Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Illinois, New York, and West Virginia - are already working on such plans.
The state legislature is dominated by Democrats in both houses, but the biggest hurdle will be getting Gov. Paul LePage (R) on board. Education Week pointed out that in the past he has been in favor of privatization and most interested in funding for grades 1-3.
May 23, 2013
[More Results from thinkprogress.org]
Poll: 57 Percent of Public Opposes Government Preschool
Government preschool programs have expanded greatly in the past decade, but a new poll finds 57 percent of Americans believe parents, not the government, should pay for preschool.
Thirty-two percent said taxpayers should pay for preschool in the Reason-Rupe May 2013 poll. "President Obama has proposed expanding government preschool programs, however only 37 percent of Americans favor raising taxes to create a universal preschool system, while 61 percent oppose," the poll summary noted.
May 20, 2013
[More Results from news.heartland.org]
Preschool threatens to dismiss worker for lunch food choice
HONOLULU - When Carissa Lee O'Connell's husband Rick began preparing organic home lunches for his wife four months ago, the goal was to improve her severe nasal allergies.
In April, Lee O'Connell was verbally warned by the preschool to stop eating home lunches in plain view of kids. But last week, the verbal warning was put to paper, stating that if O'Connell continued to defy school administrators, she would be summarily fired.
May 15, 2013
[More Results from kitv.com]
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