The Power of Preschool

The other day in my daughter’s doctor’s waiting room, I read a fascinating study about the effectiveness of preschool in drastically cutting the costs of educating children over the course of their public education. I figured I’d jump up online and find it right away to refer a bunch of people I know to it, but alas: days get away from me and I can’t remember the title, just the gist. However, my quick web search turned up dozens of similar studies. Essentially, it can cost as much as 10 times less to educate children over the course of their 12 year public education, if we simply provide a preschool program for them. I found a press release from a CT politician citing similar figures:

“…national and state studies had shown that $1 in preschool spending saved up to $6 in future spending for special education, social services, and court and prison costs. He estimated that putting all of Connecticut’s children in preschool would save $425 million over the course of their lifetimes. “

And here I thought this was news! Turns out there’ve been dozens of studies, for decades, which prove that offering preschool not only saves the taxpayers educational dollars, but also lowers crime rates, and improves students’ lifelong prosperity outlook.

(Stephen Barnett, PhD from the National Institute of Early Childhood Research brings together much of this compelling research in a PowerPoint presentation you can find at http://nieer.org/docs/index.php?DocID=60)

But sigh. Like so many clearly demonstrated educational resources, taxpayers don’t want to pay now for something that might cost them less later. My town, which is one of those stereotypically well-off CT towns, has 20 preschool spots a year, 10 of which are for special needs kids (the other children primarily serve as role models for the others, meaning that the program doesn’t benefit them all that much). We have two preschools “in town”, one of which is Montessori and costs about $7-10 thousand dollars for half days during the school year only. The other is a few thousand for four hour days during the school year, and is considered quite good, but has a waiting list at least a year in advance. And we are lucky that around here, most moms can pay these prices and have the time (or nanny), to shuttle kids around to the odd-hour schedules–as neither has a childcare component that accommodates working parents.

Yet somehow I know the parents of these middle class & wealthy children will be the very same complaining about the tax-cost of educating the few kids who fall behind each year, as well as bemoaning the cultural cost of the area’s less educated kids, once they get a bit older and begin to impact other aspects of the workforce (and yes, crime rates).

While it is certainly important to begin by helping the neediest children–intellectually and economically–we must invest in all children, in providing all of them with the “head start” to begin their education at a time when they are most able to learn to value a lifetime of learning, in these preschool years.

Too Much Education Too Early?

I’ve had two recent discussions lately that centered around the idea that parents today push their little kids too hard and expect too much of them, too young. The first was with my mother and law. Now she is no fan of education to be sure. She hated school and, frankly, two of her three children are the picture of what happens when you denigrate education: They are both under-achievers who don’t read and also don’t see the value of an education. Her son was the one child who went against his parents’ wishes and left home for college. He is a successful testament to the power of education. My mother in law was arguing against full day kindergarten. In fact, she doesn’t think kids should be in preschool. “They start too young, they are just babies, why do they need to learn how to write when they are three?” “A full day is too much for a five year old! Poor little thing!” Uh, well, they learn to write when they are three so they can learn to read when they are four or five and um, a full day is okay for a six year old? But I took this whole discussion with a grain of salt; considering the source and so on.

However, today I had a very intelligent, educated, well-read friend (no kids and no desire; one of those wonderful aunt types) say that she feels every parent she meets today is pushing their kid to be a prodigy of sometime, putting them in rigorous tutoring programs in preschool and getting them every educational toy on the market to try to have the brightest kid around. I admit that this perspective surprised me, coming from her. I see all extremes, not a trend towards kids being under too much academic pressure. Heck, I met a mom the other day whose child didn’t learn to write his name until he got to kindergarten and now she’s worried he’s going to end up in remedial classes since it never occurred to her he’d need to know any of this stuff before getting to school.

I grew up in a house with no TV and parents who focused a good deal of attention on my academic ability, even before I was in any kind of school. I could read, write, and do basic addition when I got to kindergarten. I certainly aspire to my daughter doing the same (if not better, don’t we all want that?).  At the same time, I’d never considered more extreme measures to do it than those of my parents: notebooks, attention, learning through natural curiosity.

I invested in one of those first-grade writing notebooks with the big spacing and the colored lines as well as larger pencils that are easier for little hands to grasp. Sometimes I write things for her (Dear Santa…) and she traces my words with a highlighter. I also let my daughter choose a workbook from Boarders that has turned out to be something she asks to do almost every day. I follow the advise on the book and limit her to a couple of pages a day so that she ends wanting more and I wait for her to ask to do it; it isn’t an assignment. We’ve just finished the first one–Kumon’s book of Uppercase letters–and she chose the book of numbers 1-30 for her next workbook. Maybe it is more than she really needs to be doing right now. But I can see that she knows I value it, and she values the time and attention it gets her, so I’m as optimistic that it will pave the way for a love of learning as I am that it will help her better learn how to write her letters and numbers. I know from my own experience that there are the values of our parents that we embrace and those we reject… and that both help shape who we become.

School Daze

We choose our particular burg in CT based in large part on the excellent school system. Of course, that was years before we actually had a child, much less before she actually enters the public school system. So stuff is bound to change.

Luckily, the schools continue to be of the highest quality. However, our town is actually comprised of three rather widespread small towns, each of which has always had its own local elementary school. Now I do not claim to understand politics (small town or otherwise), but we’ve had a series of votes on whether or not to consolidate our elementary schools.

In every case, the results were the same: We don’t want a consolidated school in which wee children will have to spend an hour on the bus. We want our three smaller schools. We know it costs more, that is what we want. Yet somehow it keeps coming back to haunt us. In fact, I think we’re voting on it again soon…

Another school issue has begun to haunt me as well. Half day kindergarten. Oh, I can hear the proponents: the poor little tykes should “get to be kids” and shouldn’t “get rushed into school”. Uh, last I recall, kindergarten involved a heck of a lot of playing, coloring, and a lack of pressure. And last I heard, American kids are falling behind in education, so preparing them for more rigorous academics to come–and starting what you can a bit earlier (like languages) doesn’t seem like a bad idea anyhow.

And I know for a fact there are a lot of families in which both parents must work, much less those in which both parents choose to. But the entire system is still designed under the assumption that mom is there to perform shuttle service to and from schools with hours that in no way reflect the hours people have to work. And half day kindergarten may well be the worst: 9-12:15 or 12-3?! What kind of job would accommodate that schedule? 9-3 would be hard enough, but come on.

I am lucky enough to have family (and money) to help with the scheduling issues, but I can’t be the only mom who wonders when our opinions on the subjects will actually count.

Tripple A

As Amanda so sagely put it: I make Woody Allen seem calm. In my office, they describe certain people as Type A. They call me Tripple A. In part, this is why I opted not to be a stay at home mother, out of fear I would put this level of hyper energy into over programming my poor child’s every waking moment.So when it came to childcare options, I researched. I have a spreadsheet to prove it. Same with pre-school: I have a file folder with research on everything from Montessori to KinderCare. Well, I finally came to the conclusion that she’s happy where she is and that they have a lovely preschool teacher and all is right with the world. But no. She quit.

So now they’ve “promoted” a wonderful caregiver who not only isn’t a certified preschool teacher, she didn’t even attend college. Now I realize that teaching preschool is not akin to rocket science, but this did throw me for a loop. All my research and planning for naught!

Best part: I didn’t even find out about the teacher situation until I picked my daughter up after her first day of preschool. She was so excited, wearing a new dress and toting a new thermos in her lunch box.

When I got to school, she was playing on the Pirate Ship for the first time, as only the preschoolers get to, so I sat down with another mom to watch. I turn to the mother and say, “So, big day, huh?” She looks at me blankly. “First day of preschool, my girl was so excited.” “Uh,” says this other mom, “how do I get my son in preschool?” I must have sat for a full minute in shock, then replied “well, he is in preschool, he’s three.” “Oh,” she said in a near monotone, “good.” Can I get a chorus of reality check?

Handwriting Analysis

I feel confident that if my handwriting were analyzed, it would reveal numerous unpleasantries about my mental state. If nothing else, it demonstrates remarkable laziness in perfecting this fundamental skill. Yesterday, waiting for a recalled part to be replaced on my car (do they make any cars these days that don’t have parts recalled?), I used the complementary computer to check work-related emails while eavesdropping on the others in the room. A woman of about 55 or 60 was deriding “kids today” and their lack of penmanship. “Atrocious! Do they even teach it any longer?” As luck would have it, she was sitting next to a teacher, who is also the mother of a 3 year old. “My child will learn,” she said, “because I’m a teacher.” Okay, I was a pretty great student. It was unusual for me to get below an A, though I plummeted to C+ land twice: I took Physics as an elective in college and guess what? It was wicked hard. I also got a C+ in fifth grade handwriting. I don’t think it was an entire course, but rather a segment of our reading class. I remember it, so it must have stung. My solution? Pester my grandma for a typewriter, which I received two years later. I took typing class in junior high and never turned in a handwritten paper since.

So now I have a 3 year old who mastered the alphabet a year and a half ago, recognizes all the upper & lower case letters, and can spell her name (no small feat as it is nine letters). She wants to learn to write her name now. We mastered H (the first letter), but haven’t gotten far beyond that. Part of the problem? I can’t for the life of me remember how to actually draw the letters. I mean I can make them so that they are moderately legible on paper, but I know there’s actually a “right” way to write. Enter grandma: She sent my girl what on the surface appears to be one of those noisy toys you want to feed to the gift-giver. But no! It is a VTech Write & Learn Letter Pad, which not only teaches her the correct way to draw letters, but has given me an excellent review too.