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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]
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![/quote]

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. [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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