Bacon's Rebellion

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More Fodder for the Pre-K Debate

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by

James A. Bacon
in

JLARC has taken a crack at studying Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s proposal to expand pre-K in Virginia. A draft report released yesterday draws some conclusions that bear upon the debate:

  • Research indicates that a quality preschool experience for “at-risk” four-year-olds helps prepare them for school and can have long-lasting benefits.
  • Research suggests quality pre-K can be beneficial for children not at risk, but gains experienced by these children may be more limited. Virginia’s focus on at-risk students appears appropriate.
  • Virginia Preschool Initiative students gain in literacy skills during the pre-K year and outperform other kindergarteners. Longer term student-level data are needed to assess VPI’s impact on test scores in later grades.
  • Best estimates of annual per-pupil costs for a quality pre-K program in Virginia range from $6,790 to $7,920. Costs will need to be adjusted as compensation levels, support costs, or pupil-to-teacher ratios change.
  • The Governor’s proposal for expanding the scope of preschool for at-risk children is unlikely to serve as many children by 2012 as has been stated, particularly if the VPI per-pupil amount is not increased.

Here’s my spin on the bottom line: First, we can document short-term benefits for at-risk children, but the long-term benefits are debatable. Short-term benefits to middle-class children are limited, as the long-term benefits presumably are as well.

Second, as soon as the pre-K program is expanded, it will face cost pressures. Apparently, the $5,700 per child the state allocates currently to the program is deemed less than the $7,000+ it takes to run a quality program. Raising the standards will be the next battle cry.

Thirdly and most importantly, some 5,270 slots are going unfilled currently, indicating that pre-K is not where local school systems prefer to allocate their resources. Many school boards believe there are other areas where the money may be better spent.

Let’s go ahead and expand the Virginia Preschool Initiative to include at-risk kids — and then rigorously measure the long-term impact on individual children to see if the investment does what it’s touted to do. If it does, the program is a keeper. If it doesn’t, there is no justification for expanding it beyond the at-risk population.

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12 responses to “More Fodder for the Pre-K Debate”

  1. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    “Thirdly and most importantly, some 5,270 slots are going unfilled currently, indicating that pre-K is not where local school systems prefer to allocate their resources. Many school boards believe there are other areas where the money may be better spent.”.

    Yes, exactly.

    Let the localities decide what they want to do.

    And let the localities fund the programs they decide to pursue.

    Wise County wants Pre-K for “at risk” kids – great. Up the real estate taxes a notch and start the program.

    Fairfax County wants to start a comprehensive English as a Second Language program across all grades – great. Up the real estate taxes a notch and start the program.

    The problems arise when the clowns in Richmond start making decisions for people. First, they have to define “at risk”. Poverty will certainly be a factor. But a family making $25,000 a year is perhaps not “at risk”. Unless they live in NoVA – where that income probably does create an “at risk” situation. So – what does the state do? Defines the “at risk” income level with cost of living considerations. And NoVA starts another wealth transfer while its own poor children go without. I hope I am wrong about this. Please let me know if the “at risk” tests will consider locality based cost of living.

    Meanwhile, take a long look at Michigan. An economic “one trick pony” that prospered for years on the automotive industry. Then, one day, the music stopped. The Detroit area couldn’t support itself – let alone the rest of the state. Everybody wonders why Michigan didn’t spend its 50 years of prosperity building a sustainable economic base throughout the state. Why no big venture capital / entrepreneurial enclave in Ann Arbor? Why no precision manufacturing on the Upper Peninsula? Why Why Why

    We are staring down the same gun barrel.

  2. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Sorry:

    “… without cost of living considerations.”

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    From a Fairfax County perspective, just one more piece of garbage from Richmond. Who would finance this program? NoVA taxpayers, especially from Fairfax County. Where would most of the “benefits” go? Elsewhere.

    Fairfax County’s class sizes are at or near the state maximums. FCPS does not offer all-day kindergarten countywide. We have plenty of needs right here in River City.

    But watch Fairfax County’s buffon voters. They will react based solely on emotion and support Kaine’s proposal. Dumb! Dumber! Dumbest! That’s us.

    TMT

  4. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    The DRAFT report is from the
    Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission

    Ordinarily I’d be with those that say.. “just great.. more money down a rathole”…

    Many of our kids are not doing particularly well as compared to other industrialized countries.

    I think we do need to get to the bottom of what works and what does not – and in the process of doing this – we SHOULD ultimately save money because quite a bit of the current expenditures are actually remedial in nature – and way downstream of when it gets accomplished (more expensive).. and then finally… as adults… whose limited education qualifies them for service jobs…which are – subsidized in terms of benefits by other taxpayers.

    Anytime, we have a proposal to spend money on something but it is tied to performance standards – it’s a much better situation

    I wish that much more of our education efforts were “instrumented” to help everyone understand what works and what does not and to strengthen our focus on what does work.

  5. triathlonmom Avatar
    triathlonmom

    The reason that slots remain empty is that in the Pre-K classrooms is transportation. VPI parents have to drive their kids to and from school each day. Daycares provide a bus.
    If the slots are going to fill, then these kids will either need to be able to ride the school bus or expand the Headstart bus to include them.

  6. j m holland Avatar
    j m holland

    “Let’s go ahead and expand the Virginia Preschool Initiative to include at-risk kids — and then rigorously measure the long-term impact on individual children to see if the investment does what it’s touted to do. If it does, the program is a keeper. If it doesn’t, there is no justification for expanding it beyond the at-risk population.”

    I see your point about careful expansion. However, there has to be a point where you decide to take a risk in the name of children. The reason we offer pk to kids not because it has a proportionate benefit to all children. It is because we should offer fair opportunities to all children.

    Until we start to make more educational decisions on an ethical as opposed to financial basis we will continue to get what we have always gotten form our schools, mediocrity.

    I wrote about this back in January. http://circle-time.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

  7. j m holland Avatar
    j m holland

    One more point. I want to offer this excerpt from an interview with Edward Zigler a leading national authority on early learning. He established the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy at Yale University. Zigler was one of the first National directors for Head Start back in the 60s.

    Education Sector: Your latest book is called A Vision for Universal Preschool Education. One of the big debates in early childhood education is whether public dollars should fund preschool for all or only for the poor and working poor. Why universal?

    Edward Zigler: The problems in school are not limited to poor kids. If you examine dropouts, test scores, whatever you want to look at, middle-class kids aren’t doing all that well. And there are so many more middle class kids than poor kids. No one ever talks about this, but the gap between middle-class kids and rich kids in our schools is as large as the gap between poor kids and middle-class kids. The “poor only” people aren’t worried about middle-class kids. But I think America has to worry about that group. It’s true that poor kids profit more from pre-k than middle-class kids. But, it’s like schooling in general. Would we say we should only have schools for poor children?

    That brings us to Head Start. After 41 years, Head Start still only serves about 50 percent of eligible kids. It never has and it never will serve all those who are eligible. That’s because the poor carry very little weight with policymakers. You’ve heard the old saw, “poor programs for poor children.” We always feel we can get away with a little less for poor kids. What I learned from the history of Head Start is that to maintain a good program you need a broad and influential constituency. The pre-k programs in Oklahoma and Georgia started serving only poor children and [officials in those states] learned that to maintain the programs, they must be universal.

    I tried to integrate [poor and middle-class students within] Head Start when I ran it. We’ve known since the Coleman Report [a 1966 study of American students by sociologist James Coleman that found that black children did better in integrated, middle-class schools] that when poor kids are mixed with more affluent children, the poor kids do remarkably better. Besides, poor children have characteristics and attributes that would be helpful for middle class children to model.

    Schools aren’t just there to help children develop a trade or a profession. Schools are there to help adults live in a democracy. And how are we going to do that if kids don’t see kids of other colors and kids from other socio-economic groups? Why is it all right to segregate kids along class lines but wrong to segregate them by race? I want kids to mix and that’s why I’m for universal.

  8. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    JM, A small bone to pick: You wrote, “Until we start to make more educational decisions on an ethical as opposed to financial basis…”

    That’s an meaningless distinction. Every time you decide to spend money on one thing and not the other, you’re making an ethical decision. Setting priorities involves making ethical decisions. If you spend money on pre-school, you’re not spending it on Medicaid…. or transportation… or letting taxpayers keep their own money.

  9. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “…the problems in school are not limited to poor kids.
    … so many more middle class kids than poor kids.

    …. the gap between middle-class kids and rich kids in our schools is as large as the gap between poor kids and middle-class kids.”

    this is how and why the Europeans and Japanese are cleaning our clocks.

    This is why folks as disparate as Bill Gates and Newt Ginghrich are equally concerned…

    we’ve got too many people worried about whether Johnny’s school offers AP or has other “resume building” opportunities

    and not near enough worried about producing an employable workforce.

    the thing that makes this initiative different from others than are often suspect, in my mind, is that JLARC is involved… establishing metrics and implementing performance standards.

  10. j m holland Avatar
    j m holland

    “That’s an meaningless distinction. Every time you decide to spend money on one thing and not the other, you’re making an ethical decision. Setting priorities involves making ethical decisions. If you spend money on pre-school, you’re not spending it on Medicaid…. or transportation… or letting taxpayers keep their own money.”

    It is not a meaning less distinction it is a meaningful distinction. How and why we make financial choices as a commonwealth is not a Zero-sum game. Truthfully, not many political decisions are. Where are we putting our money as a nation? Are we more interested in funding death in other countries than young lives here? The trade offs you are proposing are not the only trade offs that could be made.

    If your logic is correct then every time you fill up your gas tank you are making an ethical choice. Do you ride your bike to work? Where are you putting your money? The trade-off argument is a scare tactic of the political right to make people think they will give up medicare or medicaid if they fund preschool. If a carbon tax would fund all of the education we could ever need but no one on capital hill or in the constituency is asking for it, then what ethical choice are we really making?

    Political will is the only inhibitor of funding worthwhile social programs. The trade off argument is not that simple nor that valid.

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Research indicates that a quality preschool experience for “at-risk” four-year-olds helps prepare them for school and can have long-lasting benefits.”

    “Let’s go ahead and expand the Virginia Preschool Initiative to include at-risk kids — and then rigorously measure the long-term impact on individual children to see if the investment does what it’s touted to do.”

    I would be willing to bet that if we could measure cause and effect, a not small amount of the increasing performance of poorer children who go to Pre-K over poorer children who don’t just might be attributable to their receiving a couple of nourishing meals each day that they are in Pre-K, no small thing in the brain development of small children. Just because we don’t see people actally starving to death in the streets in the US doesn’t mean that hunger, meaning enough of the right kinds of food, isn’t a problem here.

    Over the years, I have done volunteer work with several organizations that deal with food distribution, such as food banks. Most of them said that their services frequently jumped during the summer because children were home and poorer children didn’t have access to a couple of meals in school at least 5 days a week.

    I suspect we’d get a decent return on anything that gave poorer children decent meals, Pre-K being one of them.

    Deena Flinchum

  12. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “That’s an meaningless distinction. Every time you decide to spend money on one thing and not the other, you’re making an ethical decision. Setting priorities involves making ethical decisions. If you spend money on pre-school, you’re not spending it on Medicaid…. or transportation… or letting taxpayers keep their own money.”

    there IS a difference between an “investment” and an “expense”.

    Producing MORE taxpayers that can pay for expenses such as Medicaid is not a dumb strategy even if it means prioritizing education funding over .. elective surgeries.

    We need to strictly means-test ALL social security and Medicare/aid and we need to insist on performance metrics for education.

    We have created an “entitlement” society where folks think they are “entitled” even if they are not truly needy.

    We have folks who live very, very well – who are – “on the dole” with social security and Medicare – because they are “entitled”.

    We have folks with kids in school who think that their kids are “entitled” to “free” enhanced educational services so their kids can have the proper “resume” for college entrance competitiveness and these folks are more than willing to divert educational resources from disadvantaged kids who will grow up as marginally-employable – not because they are dumb or lazy but because they did not receive the services they needed when they were being education.

    SOLs and NCLB now says – unequivocally – we WILL be accountable and responsible for the kids that were tossed aside by those who were more than willing to toss those kids overboard if more money and resources were available for their kids enhanced educations.

    When I see a school system deciding NOT to do Pre-K but at the same time pour money into AP and Governor’s School – they ARE making choices… and, in part, because of pressure from fairly well-off parents who believe that their kids are “entitled”.

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