Need for early education programs

[Andrea77]

According to research conducted among children in Texas Classrooms, children exposed to positive, stimulating experiences as young children develop enhanced learning capabilities, which improve their odds for excelling in school. Children who attend preschool or other early education programs:
• Have enhanced cognitive, verbal, and social development, which is maintained into the first few years of school
• Have significantly higher IQs and enter school better prepared to learn
• Are less likely to exhibit later delinquency and antisocial behavior
• Tend to demonstrate higher levels of school achievement and better social adjustment
• Are less likely to have to repeat a grade or be placed in special education classes
• Are more likely to graduate from high school

Clearly, there can be long-term benefits from quality early childhood education. In fact, according to one researcher involved in studying behavioral patterns in Texas Classrooms, "…for many children, preschool programs can mean the difference between failing and passing, regular or special education, staying out of trouble or becoming involved in crime and delinquency, dropping out or graduating from high school."

Children from impoverished environments tend to reap the most dramatic benefits from early childhood programs in Texas Classrooms. Early education can increase parents' and teacher's expectations of children's performance. Children growing up in poverty or near poverty face many health and environmental risks. They, in particular, need to get off to a good start in life. One way to help these children is to place them in quality early education programs.

[camaraderie]

Get rid of the illegals in Texas classrooms and you might have enough money to teach the rest. Oh yeah...the teachers unions should go too and citizen parents should be given vouchers to insure their educational $$'s are spent well and not in dead end schools that are teaching liberal thinking and the politics of victimization or simply babysitting in the violence and feeding normal kids Ritalin.
Vouchers are the only way to give poor kids a fighting chance to make it in our society.
Interesting how you spin the Texas Clssroom report which lists its' priorities on the home page as:
Now is the time to focus on that area that matters most – the effectiveness of teachers to create excellence in the classroom across Texas. The basic elements of this plan are to:

• Strengthen standards and align coursework and achievement tests with these standards;
• Improve the statewide collection of information about student, teacher, administrator, and school performance;
• Create the best tools to measure the academic progress of students in order to increase teacher effectiveness;
• Dramatically improve the evaluation of teacher performance;
• Pay more to teachers who perform well and who take on greater and more difficult assignments;
• Support and retain teachers through improved professional development and other proven academic programs;
• Remove persistently ineffective teachers,
• Improve principal leadership; and
• Improve teacher preparation to increase the supply of more effective teachers.

Gee...nothing in those recommendations about early childhood at all let alone supporting your blatant bias. Guess their conclusions from the data and what is needed most are different than your! Could it be you are an early childhood educator looking for more job security by spamming???

[sailaway21]

How about leaving the kid at home. The "professionals" have managed to get us in the situation we are now in, and you think the solution is more of the same? Home schooled children exhibit none of the failures you cite and test in the top percentiles nationwide.

The IQ measurements are transitory.
Poverty is the number one predictor of ecucational acheivement. Most kids living in poverty are in single parent house-holds with the mother. Instead of throwing money at pre-school education, perhaps you should advocat the novel idea of sex in the context of marriage. They used to be kinda linked. If a father was around, the mother might be at home raising her kids instead of working 2 jobs at low pay. And, if the father is uneducated, it might not hurt to reduce the illegal alien labor supply so that he can get a decent entry level job at a decent wage. The stunning thing is that we know what works, it's worked for centuries, but those of a particular political bent are unwilling to impose consequences on poor socieital behavior and, instead, try to wallpaper over a cracked wall with government funded programs. Did I say government funded? I meant to say sailaway21 funded programs, since I'm keeping track. Ideas have consequences. The consequences of a two parent household rearing children can be observed on college admission boards. The consequences of single parent child rearing, and poverty, are merely calls for more funding for bananas and condoms.

[camaraderie]

Well said sailaway...we may have a new thread here despite the hit and run nature of the first poster!
The only problem with home schooling is that once the kids get older it is tough for the average parent to teach what they need to know out of high school and the miss the socialization/ team sports etc. that a formal educational setting can bring. I do believe that much better results in K-8 are achievable through the home schooling process and the kids I've seen taught on cruising sailboats seem remarkably well spoken and educated.

Given the prime underlying causes you cite for under-achievement...home schooling is not the answer since the uneducated can't teach their kids. This is why I see vouchers as the way out.

We also need a better system of educating those who simply cannot be considered college material. I think we let these kids down by not providing skilled job internships and apprentiships and certifications that will still allow them to build a decent life. We prep and send way to many kids off to colleges that they can't succeed in, instead of giving them real skill training for good jobs they can do.

The big problem remains basic literacy, math and citizenship skills and while the recent emphasis on testing for progress forced on the teachers unions and school beaurocracies has helped a bit despite the yowls of protest, far too many kids ARE left behind for the reasons you state and more.
This is one area I would think the Dems would love and could find common cause with Repubs on since it is all about helping kids and poor kids especially....but the unions seem to hold sway since that is the money pot and politics prevails and nothing really gets done.

[sailingdog]

Actually, part of the problem is that qualified teachers are getting a bit scarce and funding for many of the programs that make a well-rounded education are being cut. Teaching to the test isn't helping, especially in the schools that seem to think that focusing solely on improving test results is the way to go.

Poverty is a huge issue—as it is often the schools with the poorest children that do the worst. This is partially due to the way schools are funded—and in those areas, they often have the least funding available. Part of it is probably environmental—you can't learn well if you're not nourished properly.

While I'd agree with the points you lay out in your first post Cam, the problem is how to implement those changes with the resistance of the teacher's unions in the way. Also, some of the changes are going to increase costs....and how do you fund those additional costs?

Increasing teachers salaries is one thing I am in favor of. I have several good friends that are elementary, middle and high school teachers, and what most school systems pay them, is pathetic. IMHO, there are some jobs that really don't pay anything in proportion to how they benefit society... teachers are among them.

[cardiacpaul]

Accountabily is a big concern for me... not just from the teachers. I feel that students and PARENTS need to be held accountable for the grades that little Johnny & Mary are "awarded". I have found that if a parent is not fully involved, the student (ok, i know some of us have absolute geniuses with the work ethic of a chinaman building the transcontintal railroad) ... the student will in many cases do "just enough' or "nearly enough" to not get a letter sent home. We get weekly updates. Thats not enough. The child has not made the dotted line that the amount of quality works results in a quality grade. The concept of averages hasn't penetrated the noggin. If she gets a 100% on one homework paper, and a 0 on one she decided wasn't too important to do, her average is a 50. This concept makes her eyes glass over with the resultant whine of "but, but, but..." I'm not sure when cause and effect will make the light shine in her head, but... we're gettin' there.

[sailaway21]

Yes, Cam, I would agree with your points. I was attempting to show that parents can often do as good, or better, than the pros. If we keep listening to the pros we'' never get school choice, just more of the same.

To the Dog's points I am forced to say, balderdash!
School teachers, on average, make a dollar an hour less than dentists. Don't believe me, the figures come from the Bureau of Labor. Teachers, and their unions, make a quite respectable living today for a part time job.

Funding, our original absent poster's point, is not the issue. If it was, the students in Washington, DC would be admitted to Harvard somewhere between kindergarten and first grade. New Hampshire has one of the lowest funding levels in the nation and some of the best results. We have been throwing money at this problem since the late 1960's and it ain't workin'.

Again, we know what works, and yet we deny it to those children most in need of it due to the circumstances of birth. That poor single mother needs hope that her mistake is not revisited on her child. Vouchers and school choice give her that opportunity. It is most revealing to observe where the teachers, who teach in schools such as DC, send their children to school. We already know where the politicians, who cry for more money to fix the problem, send their children. For most young families, school district is a top priority when purchasing real estate.

[sailaway21]

Yes, Cam, I would agree with your points. I was attempting to show that parents can often do as good, or better, than the pros. If we keep listening to the pros we'' never get school choice, just more of the same.

To the Dog's points I am forced to say, balderdash!
School teachers, on average, make a dollar an hour less than dentists. Don't believe me, the figures come from the Bureau of Labor. Teachers, and their unions, make a quite respectable living today for a part time job.

Funding, our original absent poster's point, is not the issue. If it was, the students in Washington, DC would be admitted to Harvard somewhere between kindergarten and first grade. New Hampshire has one of the lowest funding levels in the nation and some of the best results. We have been throwing money at this problem since the late 1960's and it ain't workin'.

Again, we know what works, and yet we deny it to those children most in need of it due to the circumstances of birth. That poor single mother needs hope that her mistake is not revisited on her child. Vouchers and school choice give her that opportunity. It is most revealing to observe where the teachers, who teach in schools such as DC, send their children to school. We already know where the politicians, who cry for more money to fix the problem, send their children. For most young families, school district is a top priority when purchasing real estate.

[sailingdog]

Sailaway

Yes, they may make that on paper... but the reality is that many teachers, especially elementary school teachers, often spend their own money, out of pocket for supplies for their classrooms and students, since the schools are incapable or unwillling to properly equip and supply their classes.

The statistics you cite don't reflect the reality of the working teacher. Go ahead, volunteer at a local school for a month, especially an elementary school, and follow a good teacher around for some time, especially at the beginning of the school year. You have a rude awakening in front of you... when you realize how much of their salary goes to supplying their classroom so they can actually do their jobs.

[sailaway21]

Dog,
With all due respect, that illustration has reached the level of hyperbole. It is not illustrative of a lack of money in the school system, but of a misplacement of priorities. If you eliminated one of the sex ed instructors, or "guidance" counselors you'd have pencils coming out your butt.

I work with hand tools all day, and if I lose one, I must replace it with my own money. Would you like to compare the cost of a Rigid 14" pipe wrench to classroom supplies? And according to the Bureau of labor I make less than the average teacher. "On Paper", what other way is there to compare things? I have not even brought up the benefit plan they enjoy, and it is not included in the Labor Dept stats. That dentist is funding his own benefit plan.

I have taught, admittedly at the collegiate level, and I do not mean to demean teachers but one must admit that it is not exactly heavy lifting, and if they are well qualified, not exactly taxing their mental capabilities, especially at the elementary school level. Their unions have done an admirable job of escalating their salary and benefits. The days of pity for the poor under-paid teacher are a memory. If we continue to fall for this claptrap, we are going to be in the same situation the Detroit automakers are in, with a benefit plan that makes it impossible to price a car competetively. In fact, in Michigan, our number one educational crisis is how we are going to pay for the next thirty years of the life expectancy of teachers who are no longer teaching. Under paid teachers? That horse has left the barn.