Friday, August 22, 2008

Universal Preschool?

The Wall Street Journal today has this op-ed piece discussing Barack Obama's plan to push for universal preschool.

Democrats love when kids spend more time in school than with their parents. That's so teachers have a better chance of indoctrinating your kiddoes with whatever crap they choose. Everybody knows that the only way to fix our educational problems is through more school, so why would anybody oppose universal preschool?

Because it doesn't work.

If anything, preschool may do lasting damage to many children. A 2005 analysis by researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, found that kindergartners with 15 or more hours of preschool every week were less motivated and more aggressive in class. Likewise, Canada's C.D. Howe Institute found a higher incidence of anxiety, hyperactivity and poor social skills among kids in Quebec after universal preschool.

The only preschool programs that seem to do more good than harm are very intense interventions targeted toward severely disadvantaged kids. A 1960s program in Ypsilanti, Mich., a 1970s program in Chapel Hill, N.C., and a 1980s program in Chicago, Ill., all report a net positive effect on adult crime, earnings, wealth and welfare dependence for participants. But the kids in the Michigan program had low IQs and all came from very poor families, often with parents who were drug addicts and neglectful.

I realize discussing my own children is strictly anecdotal evidence here, but it could be illustrative. My oldest is a go-getter who has always done well. My son is a butterfly chaser who is very intelligent but not terribly disciplined (if I hear, "he has the ability; he just doesn't want to do it" from one more teacher, I'll scream). My youngest daughter brought home only one "B" last year. The rest of her grades were "As". Yet all three kids were raised the same way (the oldest lived with me until she was 12).

I bring this up only to point out that what works in education is still pretty much a mystery. Every expert will tell you that, in order to raise good readers, you have to have lots of books around, and your children have to watch you read. But my best performing children are not readers. My son, the butterfly chaser, is a voracious reader.

The truth is, the best predictor of school performance is involvement by parents. If teachers can get parents involved, students typically perform better because their behavior has consequences (I know, some think "consequence" means "punishment", but obviously not).

This isn't to say that preschool isn't helpful for some students, but, unfortunately, the students who need it are least likely to attend. Making preschool mandatory is just one more year the school system takes from your time with your kids. And that time is short enough as it is.