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BUILDING BLOCKS

Obama Pushes for Universal Pre-K Education

'The size of your paycheck shouldn't determine your child's future'

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by Lisa Fine

Staff Writer t

Image: AP

President Obama is pushing a plan to provide universal access to pre-Kindergarten programs, saying it's an investment that would improve graduation rates, prevent violence, and reduce teen pregnancy.

He touted the idea in his State of the Union address on Tuesday and again at a visit Thursday to a preschool classroom in Decatur, Ga., to highlight a program in a Repbulican state seeking to provide universal pre-K.

"The size of your paycheck shouldn't determine your child's future," Obama said. "So let's fix this. Let's make sure none of our kids start out the race of life a step behind."

The plan would provide federal matching dollars to states with the goal of providing preschool for every 4-year-old from moderate- or low-income families. It would also expand the Early Head Start program to offer additional childcare and learning programs for toddlers, according to a White House fact sheet. The White House has not yet released cost estimates for the new preschool plan.

The program could face opposition in Congress as lawmakers are debating how to reduce the deficit and avoid looming spending cuts to existing domestic programs. Also, some policymakers have questioned the effectiveness of state-level programs. In Georgia, only six out of ten eligible students are enrolled in the program, and the high school graduation rate ranks in the bottom quartile, The Hill reports.

Via Yahoo News, The Hill and WhiteHouse.gov
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Comments (view in Forum)

  • o
    OhWiseOne
    !
    Government or government programs can never replace good parents. Truth is that a lot of people who have kids should never be allowed to have them. Why? They can't feed them, provide them with a good environment, teach them morals and values, etc...
  • Keyjo
    !
    @OhWiseOne
    Well let's see; better education leads to better jobs, less poverty, stronger nation. More tax payers verses more foodstamps. Look past the middle of your nose.
    It's a no brainer! Whoops!
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    @OhWiseOne
    So very short-sighted, you must be a teabagger.

    Stop blaming anyone and deal with the problem, and the problem is kids that can't keep up in school.
    The end result is higher crime and extra govt spending to deal with adults poorly equipped to lead an independent life.
    So, yes, spend some now to avoid spending a lot more later.

    It's the conservative thing to do, because it results in a smaller govt in the long run.
  • texas_cutie75
    !
    @harold_lloyd
    The kids nowadays aren't getting an education. School districts nationwide are foisting placement tests on kids, putting so much pressure to pass that the education is falling by the way side. The schools need to teach!!
  • View all 74 replies >
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    So very short-sighted, you must be a teabagger.

    The problem is kids that can't keep up in school.
    The end result is higher crime and extra govt spending to deal with adults poorly equipped to lead an independent life.
    So, yes, spend some now to avoid spending a lot more later.

    It's the conservative thing to do, because it results in a smaller govt in the long run.
  • o
    Leftofliberal
    !
    @RedFloppyShoes who do you think ends up paying for prison?? More often than no prison costs the same as a college education. That's where a disproportionate number of these welfare kids end up because they are incapable of ever holding down a steady job.
    This is why we call education an INVESTMEMT in the future. You get a return on that investment, you break the welfare cycle. This welfare "gimmdat" becomes a tax paying member of society. It this too complex for Tea Bagger to comprehend. All you can think of is the immediate gratification you demand
  • RedFloppyShoes
    !
    @_Jenny_ we are already feeling that. The more money that has been dumped into education has only shown that grades and test scores have gone down. We are 40 years and we are now seeing the ignorant in teaching roles.

    UNESCO and NEA have pushed a false agenda of teaching to the test, known as Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind. Then the local and state governments take it as gospel and push it down.
  • View all 11 replies >
  • DogLady_1
    !
    Part of the problems we have today stem from institutionalizing kids at an early age... I'd rather offer free classes for parents to learn how to teach their own kids the basics... Kids don't value education if their parents don't.
  • Tralee
    !
    I absolutely have to agree with this. As I said in my post, all the help in the world will go to waste if it isn't reinforced at home by the parents. Simply reading to your children from day one, and I mean day one, will do wonders.
  • DogLady_1
    !
    @harold_lloyd - Schools are institutions... The larger the school, the more institutionalized the students become... Institutionalization is the process whereby a child is programmed to accept and conform to strict controls that enables the institution to manage a large number of children with the smallest number of faculty. Children are taught from the beginning that the rules and restriction on their lives even extend to their lives outside the institution. Forced conformity, in an neffort to mainatain order in large classrooms, destroys a child's ambitions and self-determination... The condition sociologists call "anomie" can be the result of institutionalization... The child loses their own identity and cannot conform to institutional norms... they become outcasts, they are often bullied or ignored by their classmates, or declared noncompliant by school staff. This is the condition by which we get mass shootings at schools. The student doesn't fit in... they often either commit suicide or attack what they perceive as the source of their anomie.
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    @DogLady_1
    My God, that sounds like schools are no better than American gulags!
    Please look up 'anomie'.

    What you're describing is the worst possible outcome, not a typical result. It would be a mistake to formulate policy on that basis.
  • View all 13 replies >
  • Keyjo
    !
    An investment in the Nation's children, an investment in the Nation's future. Hard to argue, at least in principal.
    Of course some idiot will probably call it part of the "liberal agenda!" Those Damned liberal colleges, high schools, middle schools, kindergartens and preschools.
  • Keyjo
    !
    @OhWiseOne
    Sure. Why should we ever try to duplicate the successes of the free world? Let's just continue to educate only wealthy kids. Keep 'em poor, hungry, subservient.
  • o
    OhWiseOne
    !
    @Keyjo I simply said it is the parents responsibilty and not the government. If people can't provide a good environment for their kids and take care of them they shouldn't be having them.
  • Keyjo
    !
    @OhWiseOne
    I agree, but they DO have them!
    Would you have the government dictate who may and may NOT have children!? That kind of goes against your principles, doesn't it? Like it or not, the children are the Nation's future: ALL the children. Why not make the future as "bright" as we can!? Or do you propose more Tea Party level ignorants? And the ignorance which corresponds
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    This comes down to a choice between wanting only to cast blame vs actually doing something useful to make the nation stronger.
  • View all 16 replies >
  • stepped_in_it
    !
    "Universal Pre-K" education, without "universal post-K" education AND parental "support", will not be maintained much longer than 2-3 years.....if that IMO! IE....they'll forget it if it's not continued......
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    You are absolutely correct. We have let our education system founder, starved for funding and oversight. The solution magically appeared as vouchers and charter schools. So now, instead of tax money being wasted in the public school, we give it directly to corporations.
    Why is that solution being sold so hard?
    http://billmoyers.com/episode/encore-united-s...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legisla...

    What we need to do is start paying attention. Make sure that our taxes buy good public schools, and do not fund the teaching of creationism and 'biblical science' in charter schools. Check it out.

    http://creationistvouchers.com/creationist-vo...
  • View all 16 replies >
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    And yet we still are the center of innovation for the world.

    Kids in other countries calculate better, but our kids think
    better, especially in new ways.

    Explain why we should screw that up...
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    @MongoAPillager
    That's not only pretty old, but that page is really an ad for a math tutorial service. Could it be that they want to scare people into buying their service?
  • Fishbone345
    !
    @MongoAPillager Here. Click on the state ranking of any year. Click on the various scores and the top 10 states are usually the same kind of states. Very telling. Much more than some advertisement pulled from obscure printing.
  • View all 10 replies >
  • o
    OhWiseOne
    !
    They had Dick Durbin of Illinois on Tv the other day and they pressed him to say where he would make cuts. He kept dodging the question until the interview was over. The only place a lib wants to make cuts in is the military. They have always hated the great men and women of the military.
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    Spend some now, or spend a lot more later.

    Sure sounds crazy doesn't it?

    That's because you don't think very well.

    Maybe some pre-k would have done you some good in the area of critical thinking.

    But I doubt it.
  • Party-Cults
    !
    @harold_lloyd The spend, spend argument has not done a thing for education. How much more should we spend on education and not get any results. The education system in the U.S. is broken despite all the billions spent on it. Now I'm supposed to believe that more bureaucratic involvement and throwing more money at education, in particular giving every child a free preschool education, will suddenly solve all the problems of the education system? I don't think so. I'm tired of redistribution of wealth with no return. And thanks to unions, quality of the American education system has slowly but steadily eroded to the point that it's a joke. Yet, Obama's big idea is more tax and spend on education. Forget about it! I don't buy it! And clearly, given the history of mass mismanagement of education funds and politics inside the American education system, there is little chance that Americans will reap any reward for the fleecing of their earned income in order to provide every child free or subsidized preschool.
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    @Party-Cults
    How much more will we spend on education before you demand results?

    You'd rather gripe than help fix anything, and that's okay, we'll make it without you.
  • Party-Cults
    !
    @harold_lloyd

    U.S. Spending on Public Education

    Answering whether spending more on public Education improves academic achievement begins with establishing how much the United States spends on public education. The National Center for Education Statistics in the U.S. Department of Education publishes extensive data on Education in its annual Digest of Education Statistics, including the following important facts:

    Total spending on K-12 public education. The United States spent $553 billion on public elementary and secondary Education in 2006-2007,[4] which is 4.2 percent of gross domestic product.[5]

    Average per-student spending in public school. In 2004-2005 (the most recent school year for which data are available), an average of $9,266 was spent per pupil in American public schools.[6] This means that a student entering first grade in 2004 could expect approximately $111,000 to be spent on his or her elementary and secondary Education if the student completes high school.[7]

    Spending by level of government. Public education revenue is drawn from three sources of government: federal, state, and local. In 2004- 2005, state government provided the largest share of public education revenues: 46.9 percent. Local governments provided 44.0 percent, and the federal government provided 9.2 percent.[8]

    Federal spending on education. In 2007, the federal government spent $71.7 billion on elementary and secondary Education programs. These funds were spent by 13 federal departments and multiple agencies. The Department of Education spent $39.2 billion on K-12 education. The largest programs in the Department of Education's elementary and secondary budget were "Education for the disadvantaged" ($14.8 billion) and "Special Education" ($11.5 billion).[9]

    __________
    I would rather not try to fix a sinking boat with a wad of chewing gum. Simply throwing money at education is not going to make children smarter and achieve bigger and better things. This fact has been proven already. So, I'm not willing to throw another dime at education only to give corrupt and inept public officials more money to waste.
  • View all 11 replies >
  • WMCOL
    !
    Pre-K schooling puts needed resources on front end but it is not enough to see a disadvantgaged child successfully through High School curricula that leads to College or vocational training completion.

    It helps disadvantaged children get off to a good start, however studies show that after 1st and 2nd grades there is no significant benefit and many of these students who got Pre-K help tend to fall behind their peers who had no Pre-K schooling with end results being about as many failures as there were without Pre-K schooling, or Headstart programs.

    There are a lot of factors that effect how and when a child learns: parents education and involvement, poverty, daily environment, community standards and appreciation for education, and many more reasons.

    Pre-K schooling in isolation can be a cruel hoax played on innocent children. It is very sad to see brilliant 1st and 2nd graders who by sixth grade are failing, dropping out, getting pregnant, and getting into trouble, and are on a dead-end street.
  • MadAmerican
    !
    Here we go again. Nowhere in the constitution does it give the federal government the authority to dictate or address education. It's a state thing, he wouldn't understand. Also another big spending spree for him and his crony administration. Where's the money Obama?
  • bsking
    !
    So bartry is all 4 send in a second doctor to kill the baby if it survives the abortion attempt.... but if its determined to live, we need to get it into a government brainwashing program as soon as possible.
  • Post Removed by Moderators
  • u
    Cheenoguy
    !
    So since you seem to be very much on the anti-choice side of the abortion debate lets flip that question.
    You vehemently oppose allowing women in poverty to terminate a pregnancy because you care about life. Why do you oppose allowing that child to have the same chances at success in life as a kid with wealthier parents?
  • bsking
    !
    @Cheenoguy I don't oppose it. in fact I encourage it. I just believe that the parents should be the ones educating the child, not the government.
  • u
    Cheenoguy
    !
    @bsking
    So you are anti-public education? You believe parents, no matter how uneducated they may be are better equipped to educate their children then teachers? There are lots of countries where that is the norm. We generally refer to them as the 3rd world.
  • RoyFloyd
    !
    As long as it's really "universal", and not means-tested. Kids of the middle-class are least likely to go to preschool, caught between unreasonably low parental income limits for public programs and exorbitant cost of private ones.
  • Dan_Tien
    !
    If an earlier start to schooling was the answer to better educational performance, then academic achievement would have improved over the past few decades with the introduction of more kindergarten and preschool classes, Sesame Street and educational software aimed at young kids, but it hasn't. I say give kids time to be kids before the indoctrination begins.
  • u
    doctorj
    !
    Headstart has been proven to be a colloidal $8 Billion failure, and now Barry wants to extend it every child? BS. By the end of first grade there is no difference in performance between children who had preschool and those who did not. Another knee jerk liberal response to just throw money at a perceived problem
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    I've never actually seen a colloidal failure, do you have pictures?

    "By the end of first grade there is no difference in performance between children who had preschool and those who did not."

    Is that something you can back up with a citation, or just your ill-considered opinion?
  • harold_lloyd
    !
    @doctorj

    PJTV: Why Liberals Love Chris Dorner

    PJTV: Hail to the Leftist: Obama's Inaugural Speech the Worst In American History

    PJTV: Hot Seat with Bill Whittle: Is the Drone Warfare Medal a Badge for Cowards?(Members Only)

    "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances at 60 Minutes and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas".[
  • View all 8 replies >
  • Tralee
    !
    I have mixed feelings, on the one hand it is good for the kids to get started earlier, but on the other hand if it isn't reinforced by the parents at home, the effect is not lasting. As a matter of fact, Head Start, in a year old report held back for a year, found that the advantage disappeared by grade 3. Again, it's probably lack of parental reinforcement and interest. Unfortunately the pre-K program and Head Start doesn't come with instructions for the parents to follow and quite honestly, they probably wouldn't follow them anyhow.
  • zachsquatch
    !
    I guess I am not seeing how teaching a kid "twinkle twinkle little star" will give it an advantage. I highly doubt there will be a correlation between a childs success at the secondary level and attendance in pre-school. Maybe initially there will be one, and that's a BIG maybe, but I just don' t see how this will get a child through calculus in the 12th grade. I am an educational realist, some children are cut out for school, some are not. If anything were done with education, I want to see standardized tests for high school graduation, a mandatory GPA- 3.3 is a fair number, less integration of troublesome students and those that have the inability to learn into classes that require higher thinking skills and intellect, and the return of expulsion. Our schools are now punished for kicking out students that just are not cut out for public education, that's not fair to the rest of the students. Pre-school will not make a difference, I am sure some bleeding heart will think so, but it will not. How about we invest into more trade skills for those that are not academically willing or capable to make the cut in school? They can learn to weld, do HVAC, electrical, etc and be out in two years prepared and ready to work; instead of having nothing.

    In short, they can do it or they can't. I've seen children with a single parent excel and I've seen children with both parents happily married fail terribly. We think that there's this missing variable that we can solve. There isn't one
  • Real4WheelDrv
    !
    Yes, because all the POST K education kids get now really make a difference in pregnancy and violence...ONE MORE YEAR...will make the difference...quantity over quality...this is just more money wasting wishful thinking.
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