1.  Pre-K Schooling: An Irresistible Force?
2.  Educators can have dual roles on boards
3.  Keynote speech at the NEA's July Conference
4.  Remember Goals 2000?
5.  Reader Comments

Pre-K Schooling: An Irresistible Force?
By David W. Kirkpatrick,  Senior Education Fellow

The public school establishment likes to talk reform.  Remember Competency Based Teacher Education?  Outcome Based Education?  The Open Classroom?  Once all the rage, although lacking support from research or practical experience, they are rarely mentioned today.

Some ideas have a longer gestation period, even though similarly lacking justification from research or practical experience.  One is the ongoing push for smaller classes.  The past 200 years has seen a decline from as many as 1,000 students for one teacher in the Lancasterian system in the early 1800s to a more typical 25 students per class today. And the decline continues although the principal result is much greater costs, not student achievement.

There is a similar emerging push to introduce schooling at earlier ages without justifying evidence.

This movement is based on the sound premise that a child's first five years are extremely important. During this time, with rare exceptions, children learn to walk, talk, perhaps read and write, develop social skills and otherwise develop a personality and skills base that may heavily determine their path through life.

The problem comes with taking a quantum jump from that premise to assuming earlier schooling is the way to overcome any deficiencies in the child's private life.  As Richard Salzer wrote in 1972, "Some critics are unwilling to see a school which has failed to deal with its current students as worthwhile human beings being given similar authority over younger ones."

Perhaps that's a biased view.  But in 1985, Raymond Moore wrote in Phi Delta Kappan, an educational fraternity publication, that "reviews by the Hewitt Research Foundation of more than 8,000 studies have failed to turn up any replicable research suggesting that normal children should be schooled before age 8..."

That same article noted that "studies by Urie Bronfenbrenner, a professor at Cornell University, suggest that, at least until grade 5 or 6, children who spend more time with their peers than with their parents become peer-dependent... they lose their sense of self-worth, their optimism, their respect for parents, and even their trust in peers."

In 1989, U.S. News & World Report, citing Professor of Education James Uphoff of Wright State University in Ohio, said "Studies show that children who started kindergarten before age 5-½ are far more likely to flunk a grade, need special tutoring and emotional counseling, be socially ill at ease and later be diagnosed as learning disabled."

In 1998, the Family Research Council recalled a 1992 study at the City University of New York, that "showed that the average IQ scores of low-income preschoolers rose nearly seven percentage points for each day of the week that their mother read to them" while a subsequent study concluded "that preschoolers who stay home with their parents perform better academically than their peers in preschool."

More recently, in 2004, Yale Professor Edward F. Zigler, known as "the Father of Headstart," and is thus hardly an opponent of meaningful early education experiences, said "those who argue in favor of universal preschool education ignore evidence that indicates early schooling is inappropriate for many 4-year-olds, and that it may even be harmful to their development."

Despite this, 2005 found eight states, including Georgia, offering universal preschool.  Darcy Olsen, Executive Director of the Goldwater Institute, after researching early education noted that Georgia's 10-year-old preschool program had "served over 300,000 children at a cost of $1.15 billion and children's test scores are unchanged."

Nor is Georgia alone.  After Oklahoma began universal preschool in 1998, student test scores fell.  A review of preschooling in California "found no measured gain in educational improvement..."   In the 40-year-period from 1965 to 2004 enrollments in preschool programs grew from 16 to 66 percent.  A survey of Oklahoma teachers found 86% object to introducing a voluntary early childhood program for 3-year-olds.

The same School Reform News article that reported on Olsen's work, included an oddity on this topic.  The American Legislative Council, which represents more than 2,500 state legislators, concluded "there are better ways to educate children without expanding the state education monopoly, such as tax credits for early education." 

Although ALEC represents about a third of all state legislators, to date its views haven't persuaded their colleagues.

"Martin Engle, then head of the National Demonstration Center for Early Childhood Education in Washington, D.C., declares that children sense rejection when they are schooled early. Indeed, early schooling may be the most pervasive form of child abuse in the eighties." --p. 64, Raymond S. Moore, "It Depends on Your Aim," pp 62-64, Phi Delta Kappan, Sept. 1985

Educators can have dual roles on boards 
By Chris Moran, Union-Tribune, August 4, 2007

Excerpts:

SOUTH COUNTY – School employees commonly serve on the governing boards of school districts that don't employ them. What makes a case in South County different is three administrators' dual roles at Southwestern College and the Sweetwater Union High School District, because they're in positions to vote on each other's budgets and salaries.

Greg Sandoval is interim president of Southwestern and a member of the Sweetwater board. Arlie Ricasa is director of student activities at Southwestern and is on the Sweetwater board. Jorge Dominguez is director of the Educational Technology Department at Sweetwater and a member of the Southwestern board.

The arrangement is legal. Governance ethicists raise questions about appearances, though, especially when the crossover votes occur as close together as they have recently. ....

But the Southwestern-Sweetwater overlap creates an appearance of possible conflict, Stern said. “You can't have two masters, so the question is, 'Where is your loyalty?' ” he said. “I really think that they need to re-evaluate whether they should be on each other's boards.” 

Click here to read the full article

Keynote speech at the NEA's July conference

During the first week of July, the National Education Association (NEA) held its annual conference. NEA president, Reg Weaver, delivered the keynote speech. He proposed an education bill of rights on behalf of the children of the United States. It was received with cheers and clapping of the attendees of the conference. You can listen to this part of his speech by following this link thanks to Mike Antonucci of the Educational Intelligence Agency. (please note that in this video he actually said, an “economic” bill of rights but his written speech says “education” bill of rights)

The education bill of rights on behalf of the children of the United States according to Weaver is as follows:

* the right to universal pre-school and full-day kindergarten.
* the right to small class sizes.
* the right to well-trained and well-paid educators and professionals.
* the right to an engaging and challenging curriculum and quality textbooks.
* the right to active participation by parents.
* the right to adequate and equitable funding and other resources for all public schools.
* the right to receive help for English language learners, and students with special needs.
* the right to a high school diploma or GED certificate, ensured by graduation requirements, thus reducing the dropout rate.
* the right to equal educational opportunities to ensure that the education achievement gap is closed.
* the right to have multiple measures used to determine student learning.

... the right to attend a school that best fits the child?
... the right to have their parents actively pick that school?
... the right to attend a school that is succeeding regardless of whether it is public or private?
... the right to choose a school other than one that is part of a government monopoly?

Remember Goals 2000?
By Curt Hier

No Child Left Behind has no shortage of critics, and it may not be reauthorized this year. Vermont’s own Bill Mathis is one of the leading critics of it. In fact, Dr. Mathis, who is superintendent of the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union, has made a second career as an education guru concerning the law. He and the NEA have sued the federal government over it, claiming that it is an under-funded law.
 
Speaking of under-funded laws, where were Mathis, the NEA, and the rest of the education crowd when Clinton’s Goals 2000 was being enacted? That law, which launched the development of state standards, has cost millions more dollars than No Child Left Behind. And the federal shortfall has been much greater. Standards development and implementation has been a huge bureaucratic undertaking. The result has been 50 reinventions of the wheel -- and zero accountability being achieved. At least No Child Left Behind has brought about some gains in reading for minority students.
 
Perhaps the double standard comes from the establishment’s love of Clinton and hatred of Bush. Or perhaps the establishment realized they could control what went into the standards, whereas they cannot control what goes into No Child Left Behind’s standardized tests.
 
Half of Vermont’s geography standards involve either cultural diversity or environmentalism. These concepts belong, but they shouldn’t dominate. No political agenda should dominate our state standards.
 
Goals 2000 has left a much worse legacy than No Child Left Behind. It has wasted millions of dollars. And it has accomplished nothing, except to advance a political agenda.

Reader Comments about Highly Qualified Teachers

“Your last newsletter mentioned NCLB and it's intent to improve teacher quality.  In a future addition I would like to hear more about that for Vermont & the union's role in that effort.” ~~~KB 8/2/07
 

We do!  Please consider a gift to Vermonters for Better Education, the publisher of the weekly Vermont Education Report, Vermont's ONLY continual source of education news. Send donations to: VBE, PO Box 72, Woodbury, VT 05681. VBE is a nonprofit organization and contributions are tax-deductible.

The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is published by Vermonters for Better Education PO Box 72 Woodbury, VT 05681 - 802-472-5491. The Vermont Education Report may be reprinted with the editor's permission. For more information contact: VBE@comcast.net or visit us on the web: http://www.schoolreport.com

VERMONTERS FOR BETTER EDUCATION is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to enlist parents and the public at large in achieving quality educational opportunities for all the children of Vermont by monitoring the state of education in Vermont; promoting the value of educational freedoms for all parents; and giving parents the evaluative tools with which to identify excellence.

Retta Dunlap, executive director
VBE@comcast.net