Preschool: free day care under the guise of education

Red Jahncke: The 'Universal Pre-K' Fallacy
Free school for 4-year-olds? Sounds great. Too bad it is of no educational value and the cost would be staggering.

 

It shouldn't be, though. There's preschool as it exists, which from my disappointing experience mirrors the author's evaluation. And there's preschool as it should exist, as a learning place.

My son learns a lot more at home than at school. I'm not sure they learn anything, really. Well, they learn about Christian mythology. He goes to school, learns about something, and then I have to set the record straight.

I'm always somewhat skeptical about conservative critiques of preschool, though, because part of it seems to come from hostility toward women in the workplace.

 

My youngest is in kindergarten. He learned a ton in Pre-K. He was still in day care the whole time he was in Pre-K. We'd drop him off in the morning, they'd bus him to Pre-K and then pick him up at lunch time.

The school where my kids go now just started offering Pre-K this year. My youngest is head and shoulders ahead of most of the kids in his class. There are a lot of reasons for that, but I think the fact that he's been going to school for a year longer than most of his classmates is definitely part of it.

 

Boy, this is just a red-letter day for YF binky topics!

I expect to see "Joe Girardi, great humanitarian" any minute now.

 

For the record, the economist who produced the influential Pre-K study was a U. Chicago free market conservative. Obama taught there with him in between stints at Karl Marx Tech.

 

I was thinking of going with something light and fun to round out the trilogy.

Maybe something like this from the NY Post:

The $150 haircut that got me laid! http://bit.ly/198UtLM

 

The Pre-K author taught at the Law School?

 

John Edwards is writing for the Post now?

 

Maybe they ran into each other at the business school cafeteria. It's way better than the law school one.

 

And, a fairly decent walk.

It's absurd to try and compare the culture at the Business School to the Law School. And to pretend the lecturers/professors at the two "pal around" with each other is also silly.

They're more likely to know each other because they're neighbors in Hyde Park than because one teaches at the Law School, while the other teaches at the Business School.

 

Yeah, economics never enters the conversation at the law school.

Obama was influenced by Heckman. And he was largely influenced by him because he was exposed to him while working at the same university.

 

One thing that shouldn't be completely discounted that's of value for lower-income kids in preschool is the value of routine and structure. Even if kids aren't cramming algebra every day, at least they aren't watching "Andy Griffith" re-runs and cramming Cheet-os.

As much as I think we've lost something as the days of Huck Finn's childhood recede, it's a different world now. My son turned 4 in June, and he's beginning to read. I talked to a woman I know the other day. She went to New Trier High School, one of the best public high schools in America, then Berkeley, then law school. She said she didn't learn to read until she was 6. And she's only like 28 or 29 years old. That's how much different things are now. So maybe preschool wasn't of much value in 1990. But it might be necessary in today's global economy.

But, you know, women working.