Would free Pre-K in East and North Moco improve the school system?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think its interesting how many people here bash immigrants and spanish speaking families. Most of our relatives were immigrants at one point. Many forget that.

I also find it interesting on here how many people push play based preschools with no academics and they are the same ones complaining about the other kids being behind when their kids are equally behind if they don't know the basics and are pre-reading or reading before going to K.

Play based preschool doesn't mean you can't or don't expose children to academic learning. My daughter is in a Reggio Emilia program. I love the environment is helping her learn through play. She gets read to a lot at school (one of her teachers came from a academic preschool and confided in me that she reads to the kids a lot more at the Reggio school because she isn't required to read certain books to fulfill curriculum requirements and isn't tied to be super strict schedule that says they have to do X amounts of read-alouds a day). We also read to her at home. She has letter puzzles and magnets to help her learn about letter and number recognition and spell her name.

Right now she's only two and a half so I'm perfectly fine with just working on letter and number recognition when the mood strikes. As she gets older we can do more work on letter sounds and writing letters. She is going to have man years of attending school in a more academically rigorous section so I'm glad that preschool is not very rigorous right now.

I wish more preschools were like that. I wish my son's was like that.

Of course people push play based preschools. That's because in preschool you are supposed to play and not be forced into academics. That is not the age to learn to read. It's the age to learn to play and be social. We need to put to rest the idea that teaching kids to read and do academics at an early age somehow gives them a leg up.

Not to mention that play is how young kids learn. Full stop.

THere's been some intersting studies about why head start is not effective (ie peers catch up by 3rd grade) and one theory is there's so much repetition of content and activities and kids kind of burn out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't the damage already done by pre-k? That's Hart and Ridley study concluded that the lack of early vocabulary in children was never made up later on. Haven't they studied Head Start and found that the initial gains wear off when students hit the wall halfway through ES? They have little background knowledge of anything so once they learn how to read, they can't comprehend what they are reading.

EH, what they found is that the benefits of Head Start wear off *in the absence of further high quality intervention."

So, Head Start can't fix structural inequalities, but Head Start + high quality education does produce better outcomes than no preschool, even no preschool + high quality elementary school.

The high quality education should include tracking, because what is needed is the background information that is necessary to comprehend what you have learned to decode. Asking everyone else to sit in a classroom while teachers introduce basic animals, colors, numbers vs. letters, weather vocabulary, directions like up and down, etc. to kids who are aliterate is too much. Let's address the needs of all kids by letting teachers focus on a specific segment of the population and not expect miracles.

You're absolutely right, but it is VERY hard to justify tracking in early elementary because you end up boosting exactly the kids who come in with the advantages. So my kid comes in reading and doing basic math because we are well-educated middle class people, so then they get tracked, so then they get ahead, so they get further tracked. It institutionalizes privilege. So...figure out how to do it without just solidifying class structures and we may actually get there.

So you think it's better to slow down an uber-prepared kid who is thirsty to learn quickly and has a great support structure at home? Isn't that the failed Curriculum 2.0 mindset? No child leads the way!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't the damage already done by pre-k? That's Hart and Ridley study concluded that the lack of early vocabulary in children was never made up later on. Haven't they studied Head Start and found that the initial gains wear off when students hit the wall halfway through ES? They have little background knowledge of anything so once they learn how to read, they can't comprehend what they are reading.

EH, what they found is that the benefits of Head Start wear off *in the absence of further high quality intervention."

So, Head Start can't fix structural inequalities, but Head Start + high quality education does produce better outcomes than no preschool, even no preschool + high quality elementary school.

The high quality education should include tracking, because what is needed is the background information that is necessary to comprehend what you have learned to decode. Asking everyone else to sit in a classroom while teachers introduce basic animals, colors, numbers vs. letters, weather vocabulary, directions like up and down, etc. to kids who are aliterate is too much. Let's address the needs of all kids by letting teachers focus on a specific segment of the population and not expect miracles.

You're absolutely right, but it is VERY hard to justify tracking in early elementary because you end up boosting exactly the kids who come in with the advantages. So my kid comes in reading and doing basic math because we are well-educated middle class people, so then they get tracked, so then they get ahead, so they get further tracked. It institutionalizes privilege. So...figure out how to do it without just solidifying class structures and we may actually get there.

So you think it's better to slow down an uber-prepared kid who is thirsty to learn quickly and has a great support structure at home? Isn't that the failed Curriculum 2.0 mindset? No child leads the way!

I don't think anyone is saying that, but tracking starting in kindergarten does have the side effect of reinforcing privilege. It would also leave out a heck of a lot of kids who come into kindergarten ready to learn, but out of play-based rather than academic-based preschools.

It's just not good social or educational policy to track really young kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't the damage already done by pre-k? That's Hart and Ridley study concluded that the lack of early vocabulary in children was never made up later on. Haven't they studied Head Start and found that the initial gains wear off when students hit the wall halfway through ES? They have little background knowledge of anything so once they learn how to read, they can't comprehend what they are reading.

EH, what they found is that the benefits of Head Start wear off *in the absence of further high quality intervention."

So, Head Start can't fix structural inequalities, but Head Start + high quality education does produce better outcomes than no preschool, even no preschool + high quality elementary school.

The high quality education should include tracking, because what is needed is the background information that is necessary to comprehend what you have learned to decode. Asking everyone else to sit in a classroom while teachers introduce basic animals, colors, numbers vs. letters, weather vocabulary, directions like up and down, etc. to kids who are aliterate is too much. Let's address the needs of all kids by letting teachers focus on a specific segment of the population and not expect miracles.

You're absolutely right, but it is VERY hard to justify tracking in early elementary because you end up boosting exactly the kids who come in with the advantages. So my kid comes in reading and doing basic math because we are well-educated middle class people, so then they get tracked, so then they get ahead, so they get further tracked. It institutionalizes privilege. So...figure out how to do it without just solidifying class structures and we may actually get there.

So you think it's better to slow down an uber-prepared kid who is thirsty to learn quickly and has a great support structure at home? Isn't that the failed Curriculum 2.0 mindset? No child leads the way!

I don't think anyone is saying that, but tracking starting in kindergarten does have the side effect of reinforcing privilege. It would also leave out a heck of a lot of kids who come into kindergarten ready to learn, but out of play-based rather than academic-based preschools.

It's just not good social or educational policy to track really young kids.

PP doesn't seem like they have any idea what goes on in Montgomery County kindergarten classrooms because there is tracking in the form of flexible reading in math groups.


Flexibility is so important because kids at this age can often make big leaps in ability.