Because preschool is so expensive and so highly regulated, Soni Sangha and other New Yorkers have joined The Pre-K Underground, educating each other’s children without the government’s consent.
This is what jumped out at me though:
The lack of affordable pre-K means that middle-class children lag behind their more affluent counterparts when they get to kindergarten. More than one quarter of upper-middle-income children entering kindergarten do not know the alphabet, and almost 20 percent of middle-income children do not understand numerical sequence, according to national statistics from the advocacy group Pre-K Now, financed in part by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Research shows tremendous long-term benefits of schooling before kindergarten. Adults in Michigan who had attended pre-K had a 33 percent higher average income than their peers who had not, according to the 2005 update of a long-term study, The HighScope Perry Preschool Study, often cited by pre-K advocates. Despite these findings, only about 30 percent of 4-year-olds in this country are enrolled in prekindergarten.
I think we’re conflating cause and effect here. The children who get an expensive preschool education are not identical to the children who don’t.
I found the stat that more than one quarter of upper-middle-income children entering kindergarten do not know the alphabet shocking. I would say that in our circle, less than one quarter of children entering preschool at age three don’t know the alphabet. That said, more than one quarter entering kindergarten do not know how to read.
I thought we had huge evidence that (controlling for IQ), there were no long term effects from pre-schooling (after 25).
Aretae,
I suspect what’s actually going on here is competition to get into magnet schools, schools for the gifted, and the like. Simply being familiar with the school as a place and an institution can make a big difference on scores on such examinations, as can doing the “red shirt” thing (even 6 months makes a big deal on development and evaluation if you’re talking 5-8 year olds).
My wife and several of her friends have a weekly pre-school coop thing that they do with their 1-4 year olds, which I suppose may evolve into something like the Pre-K being talked about here, although with a decidedly more homeschooling or unschooling bent to it.
I don’t think they’re controlling for IQ or anything else, because their explicit goal is to get government funding for preschools.
Here we have correlation with Herr Falkenstein’s contention that (at least relative) envy drives markets. Envy triggers competitive escalation. Sometimes social conventions restrain this escalation. In times like these they don’t. So people will seek competitive advantage for them and theirs irrespective of how feeble or non-existent the supposed advantage turns out to be.
A quick survey of Google hits on this topic seems to show that everyone with their hand out for money (private and government funding) is convinced that pre-K education is essential, and everyone else is either skeptical or convinced it’s a waste of time.
I’m guessing that there is a pretty good correlation between kids whose families can afford $30K for preschool and kids who make good money as adults.
Also, there is no standard curriculum for comparison; my wife and I sent our kids to a co-op pre-school that just worked on kids playing together and learning to listen to other kids and wait their turn and help each other.
Finally (this anecdote from my Mom, who was listening in on my wife and I discussing preschool), the last time she helped me with reading a book was when I was three. What good is $30K preschool education to a kid who is already educating himself?
Finally finally, the Finns have the best educated kids on the planet, and they don’t even require schooling until age 7; and when they do go to school, they require at least 75 minutes of recess per day.
Pre-K education? Humbug!