Preschool for All?

There has been a big push all season for preschool for all four year olds in California. I've been watching the debates. Here's a voice from Heather Moore about the program.

Part of the problem of providing a high quality preschool for any child in the preschool age is finding enough teachers who know how to teach preschool.

Any good school will put experienced teachers with the youngest because in the youngest classes, children must learn to learn in addition to to grasping concepts. First time teachers often lack the skills to do this well. It takes some teaching time to be able to do this.

Most people don't have a clue about teaching children to learn. Most people can't teach preschool. Unlike traditional grades where children have reached the age of reason, a preschool teacher is teaching unreasonable people who are often not old enough for about half the curriculum. Integrating students, learning levels and curriculum makes most teachers crazy. There is often no foundation because the children are too young for intellectual building blocks.

On Monday, you teach colors and everyone knows them. On Tuesday, you reach for the colors and they know half. Some children won't recognize their colors until much later. Yet you tell little stories about the letters - This is Mouse House... and the next day half the class is proficient in half the letters - but two weeks later, they have never seen the letter M nor do they remember that it's a mouse house. The plunge in and teach and reteach and teach again is made of experience. The material is nominal and has to be presented as a game, a toy, a fun experience every day they may remember and perhaps not.

Anyway, here's the article:

Universal Preschool Requires Increased College Funding
By HEATHER MOORE By HEATHER MOORE

December 29, 2005

The Preschool For All Act, sponsored by Rob Reiner and the Preschool California group, is intended to provide access to high-quality preschool for every 4-year-old in California whose parents decide to enroll their child. The main provisions of the act are increased training for preschool teachers, increased pay for preschool teachers and the requirement that, by 2016, all preschool teachers have bachelor's degrees.

I am a proponent of preschool. My parents were blessed to find nursery schools that combined a preschool program with day care. I credit those programs with helping me and my younger sister make the transition to kindergarten. I have often envisioned an era in which programs like this are the rule rather than the exception. Perhaps universal preschool is the first step toward this.

But the Preschool For All Act shouldn't pass simply due to intent. Like all items on the ballot, it should be evaluated for its practical application. Now is the time to begin thinking about what should be considered when making our decision.

California's much-needed preschool teachers won't be coming from Stanford or any of the top-tier universities. They will be — and have been for years — coming from community colleges and four-year state institutions. These same institutions have been dealing with funding cuts by the state, resulting in the colleges raising tuition, and decreased enrollment resulting from students being unable to afford to continue their college education due to the higher fees.

Like many of our residents earning college credits, be it for certification or a degree, these students are juggling school, employment and family commitments. Some are barely making ends meet and, as tuition costs rise along with the cost of living, their struggle to fund their education increases.

Many government aid programs require the students to carry a full load and barely cover education expenses, forcing the students to work full time as well. But they persevere. They choose to be child development workers not because of the money they will earn, but due to a genuine commitment to making a difference in the education of a child.

I believe our preschool teachers are underpaid and I applaud the effort to get them more money, but we must understand that the promise of a larger paycheck once they finish their education doesn't supplant the need for funding for that education.

Many programs focus on helping potential child development workers gain the funding assistance and necessary training to be good educators. In putting Preschool For All in place, we must see that its new efforts complement existing programs. There should not be a duplication.

The Preschool For All Act is a good idea, worthy of consideration. But it must be understood that in voting to fund high-quality preschool programs, we must also vote to fund the college education for the teachers who will work in the high-quality preschool programs.