Speakeasy forum: Our president pushes free pre-school plan

pre-school to add an advantage or help in the transition from home life to academic, I wonder just how much of that is the school itself or the total experience of the child. I'm afraid that for too many, free pre-school is just a chance for parents to get free baby sitting. Pre-school employees do not tend to be certified teachers though some may be there to build a resume. I would also think that government paid or sponsored pre-school would necessarily generate a whole new set of regulations and would just become another intrusion in people's lives as well as a taxpayer expense with little value.

for pre-school services. I have a problem with it becoming a government entitlement and especially when it's largely agreed that we're already over our head in debt. And another reason just might be that the Obama administration already finds the Head Start programs of little value. This doesn't seem to be due to a lack of money either. If you look at this paragraph from the OP link,

"Aides said Obama would seek additional money for Head Start and Early Head Start programs focused on offering services to infants, toddlers and 3-year-olds, while states would take over a greater share of programs for 4-year-olds." (underline mine)

it makes even less sense. He want's to start with infants? Why not just have the government pick up the babies from the hospital once they're cleared for discharge? Maybe there can be established visiting hours for parents from then on...or maybe parents can sign them out for weekends? This is just dumb. There's just never been a better "head start" for a kid than its first few years in a good family environment. If we want to see more unstable and violent young people, we're surely going about it the right way.

has found that Head Start children are actually running BEHIND kids who didn't go to Head Start by the time they hit third grade. Sounds like another joke of a program.

Heather has Derek Jr in a 'day care type pre-school' right now. He's three years old. She doesn't want him there to learn much of anything other than to realize that teachers are to be respected and listened to and that there are rules to follow. The 'teacher' gives out a green sticker on a chart every day that a kid has a good day.......red stickers for bad days. Derek thought he did real good by striving to get that red sticker his third day in because his favorite color happens to be red. When he discovered that only the green ones were for good days, he's gotten one every day since, but he still asks his 'teacher' if he can get the red sticker taken off because the other kids can see it. LOL Heather teaches her boys maps, letters, numbers, the computer, etc. and they have lots of friends that they have play dates with and they pretty much behave in other environments (stores, restaurants, people's homes, playground, etc) but it's almost always because Heather or Derek is there to correct them right away. She wanted them to realize that OTHER adults are in charge when their parents aren't. So far it's working out pretty well, and he's only there for four hours a day.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/14/head-start-sad-and-costly-secret-what-washington-doesnt-want-to-know/

Something I found pretty interesting is that although the Sandy Relief bill included $100M for Head Start, BO started immediately campaigning during the sequester issues that Head Start would be shut down. Oh, my bad.......another flat out lie.

>>>And that's exactly what they did in the Hurricane Sandy relief bill. It contains $100 million in new funding for Head Start - ostensibly to provide funds to Head Start centers in the Northeast affected by the storm. According to the Senate appropriations committee, that $100 million will be divvied up among 265 centers—an average of more than $377,000 per center.>>>

continuity of the teaching method. Kids who learn by accident while being entertained will have trouble adjusting to an educational environment that expects them to focus on learning rather than having fun. Remember that it was the Obama administration study that determined that Head Start wasn't what it should be. Either the president has ignored the finding, changed his mind or decided that the solution is to pump more money into it.

They always exempt themselves from anything that would make them uncomfortable.

is that too many school systems are already broken. What good does it do to try and give a child a head start to only find him/herself dumped into a broken system. Why not first fix that which isn't functioning properly?...or at least try to. If you pre-fab a house and place it on a poor foundation you've just wasted your time and energy.

...districts. Those school systems actually do a lot for the brightest students (a la 'gifted'), and the middle to lower end are more likely to either coast, or fall through the cracks a little.

IME and O, what were considered 'gifted and talented'-type programs back in my day most certainly pale when compared to the very modernized methods they are exposing many of these young learners to now. While we are most definitely way behind in STEM, if some of the same teaching tools can be employed on the middle and lower ends of the learning spectrum, things should start looking a lot better in 20 years.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that today, in a typical two parent/two full time job household (or more jobs, possibly), that pre-school isn't such a bad idea to be mandated. Obviously the timing isn't so good now economically, but later on the bill comes due as we end up incarcerating many kids who were never properly motivated/socialized like they should have been as young learners.