Content Knowledge:
Session 3
1.
What strikes you as most important in this
discussion of the relationship between social policy, child development and
later achievement?
What strikes me as most important in the discussion of the
relationship between social policy, child development and later achievement is
the high return on investment that early childhood education has on our
economy. Early childhood education equates to life long individual success and
breaking the cycle of crime, poverty, and unemployment yet the United States
doesn’t want to invest. Education lacks
the lobbying power needed to show the return of high quality early childhood
development, the main driver in sustainable economic growth. That California
cemeteries are inspected more often than childcare facilities is disgusting, I
have no other words to describe it. Growing
up playing sports, my coaches always emphasized grooming the bench for the
future by giving the younger/greener players an opportunity to get game time
and practice experience in the hopes to maintain a championship team for more
years than one. I agreed with a line in the film stating how we are creating a
two- tiered society even though we know how to prevent it and help, much like
grooming our children, the future contributers to society.
2.
What do you think this perspective adds to the
discussion of school reform?
By taking a cost benefit equation perspective when looking
at school reform, demonstrates how early investment in HIGH quality education
can yield a huge return on investment. High quality education is key here. Our
current school reforms are looking for the quick fix, almost a band-aid,
instead of starting with the root of the future. NCLB is a perfect example of the failure of
the school reform, which started with an unattainable goal. The high school
class of 2013 was the first class to have gone through their entire K-12
education under NCLB, and I feel like we have failed them (as a nation). From
my experience, this generation of students/people do not know how to think or
take initiative because they have never been given the opportunity to do so,
not because they are unable. I feel that we need to define what HIGH quality
education entails to policy makers and let teachers do the teaching. There is
no one right way of teaching, learning and connecting with students, which is
why I think investing in early education and merely giving children the
opportunity to be successful, is so important.
3.
What is one question these videos raise for you?
If the cost of special education is outpacing the cost of
regular education, due to a lack of opportunity prior to Kindergarten, then why
isn’t preschool made mandatory? If it is due to cost, wouldn’t creating public
preschools be a smart investment to allow equal opportunity for all children
regardless of socio-economic status and curb the cost of special education to
those who really need it? This raises another question for me, if public
preschools were created and mandated, do you think people would just feed off
the system similar to welfare and unemployment?
I responded to both Taylor Francesci and Kelly Bull.
I responded to both Taylor Francesci and Kelly Bull.
Ashley,
ReplyDeleteI believe that you have stated a very important factor in this whole discussion, “High quality education is key here.” We all know that quality care matters, but no one has been explicit about what high quality care really is. We need a definition. The film mentions that there are four longitudinal studies that show quality early childcare makes a difference, but we are hard pressed to define that quality exactly and even more hard pressed to duplicate it throughout America. Many factors come into play when trying to create Perry Preschool in other areas. Is it possible to duplicate quality care in one area to another? Is the model of one quality care center right for another area of the country or even county? Does a urban area have the same needs as a rural area?
At the end of your blog, you brought up special education costs and how valuable early education is for preventing candidates for special education. I believe that this is very true. The idea of investing in preschools at public school sites makes sense to me to ensure that all have that early opportunity. Our society today expects that most children will go to preschool. Knowing how important early childhood experiences are to one’s future success, I think that it critical that we get preschoolers into the public schools and include preschool goals among our state standards. Only then will our government act responsibly in providing the support to young children that they so deserve.
Kelly Bull
Hi Ashley,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your frustrations that our government isn't investing in our future through early childhood education. If there are so many longitudinal studies that show it creates more successful human beings, then why aren't we providing for these children?? It's incredibly frustrating and it further highlights where the power lies in our country. I think that educators should band together and take on lobbyists, but that's a lofty goal.
I think the questions you raised are really interesting. I think that making preschool public could definitely be a solution. This would require the government to open preschools and hire qualified professionals. I know that preschool is practically mandatory for parents who want their children to be successful in school (and can afford it). I think it would be nice to have those available to all children, but I think it could also end up similar to public schools where there aren't as many high quality preschools in low income areas. There is always a possibility that people will take advantage of a system where free childcare is provided, but I'm not sure that that is a good enough reason to not provide it. If children are getting quality care from credentialed professionals, who is being cheated?
Katie Rainey