The Case For Pre-School

In 2005, Councilman Krupicka and School Board Member Schmalz proposed that Alexandria work to expand pre-school opportunities in the City.  In the Fall of 2005 the City Council and School Boards passed a rare joint resolution calling for an expansion of pre-school. 

 

Councilman Krupicka Also serves on Governor Kaine's Start Strong Pre-K Task Force to help create policies to expand pre-k opportunities throughout the State of Virginia.

 

Start Strong Task Force Web Site

 

Smart Beginnings Web Site

 

 

The 2005 Memo:

 

MEMORANDUM

 

March 28, 2005

 

TO:  City Manager Hartmann, Superintendent Perry, Honorable Mayor Euille, Vice-Mayor Pepper, Chairman Wilkoff, Vice-Chairwoman Danforth, Members of Council and Members of the School Board

 

CC:  Early Childhood Commission, PTAC

 

FROM:  Councilman Rob Krupicka and School Board Member Arthur Schmalz

 

            SUBJECT:  Universal Preschool Access

 

____________________________________________________________________________

 

We are all committed to the City's Strategic Plan goal of making Alexandria's public schools the best in the region.  Ensuring that every child entering school is ready to learn is a critical piece of that vision.  Numerous studies -- some of which have amassed nearly 40 years of data -- all point to the same basic truth: Children who have had quality pre-school experience perform better in school and in life than those who have not.  Among other things, they are better prepared to learn, and they perform better on literacy tests than their peers without pre-school.  Pre-school educated children are also more likely to graduate from high school and college, and are less apt to get in trouble or participate in criminal activity than children without pre-school.  Thus, over the long term, pre-school educated students are more likely to become productive citizens who require comparatively fewer public services than their counterparts without pre-school.  Studies indicate that, for every dollar invested in high-quality pre-school programs, the community could save as much as nine dollars in future service costs.  

 

Yet, in Alexandria, nearly half of all public school students entering kindergarten have had no pre-school experience whatsoever.  Most of the children who go without pre-school come from minority or economically disadvantaged families who too often cannot afford private pre-school programs.  Alexandria is lucky to have a number of high quality, publicly subsidized pre-school programs that provide valuable services to needy children.  Unfortunately, a variety of constraints prevents these existing programs from being able to serve all of the children in need of pre-school experience.  

 

Simply put, the time has come to make quality pre-school services available to all of this City's children.  This is truly a no-brainer.  Alexandria is a thoughtful community that wants the best for its children, and the City Council and the School Board are committed to a quality education system for Alexandria's children.  Yet, when nearly half of the children entering the school system are at-risk, and lack the experiences necessary to take full advantage of the outstanding opportunities that we provide, the school system and the City suffer.  We can and should take full advantage of the best research, learning and expertise so that our City is a place where every child has an opportunity to succeed.  

 

Even with immediate attention to the problem, it won’t be solved overnight.  While Alexandria is blessed with many high quality pre-school providers, a caring community and talented City and School staff, we lack the space, teachers, a financial model and outreach programs necessary to provide pre-school experiences for every child.  Fortunately, our assets outweigh our challenges.  If the City, the School Board and our community leaders commit the necessary time, energy and resources, we can make quality universal pre-school experience a reality for every child in Alexandria.  

 

We intend to seek funding in this year's City and School Board budgets to help the City and School administrations work with Alexandria pre-school providers, parents, the Early Childhood Commission and other stakeholders to craft an implementation strategy for expanded pre-school access in Alexandria.  We need to focus on the top priorities and most obvious opportunities first, such as reaching disadvantaged and other at-risk children who presently receive no pre-school services.  The goal is to begin expanding pre-school access by no later than the fall of 2006, and then work to expand such access further every year thereafter.  We ask for everyone's support in promoting this worthy endeavor. 

 

 

UNIVERSAL PRESCHOOL ACCESS

 

THE BENEFITS FOR ALEXANDRIA

 

 

  1. It (Universal Preschool) can benefit parents and other caregivers while stimulating children – see www.health.org/govpubs/bkd424
  2. There is a High Benefit-Cost Ratio ie:  Perry Preschool Study and Prenatal/Early Infancy Project www.health.org/govpubs/bkd424
  3. 62% of children under that age of six in Virginia have both parents or the only parent in the workforce, thus being in the care of someone else during the day www.fightcrime.org
  4. Kindergarten teachers report  that 35% of children are not ready to learn when they enter kindergarten (48% in Alexandria) www.fightcrime.org
  5. Quality pre-school programs result in lower crime and drug use, higher graduation rates, and fewer families receiving welfare. www.fightcrime.org
  6. In Virginia, Head Start and state-funded pre-k programs together served approximately 17,500 children in 2002, which is 9% of all 3 and 4 year olds served by these programs. www.fightcrime.org
  7. Voluntary Preschool for all means a better K-12 education system. www.preschoolcalifornia.org/pg14.cfm
  8. Children in quality care programs when they were 3 and 4 years old scored better on math, language, and social skills development through the early elementary years than children in poor-quality care. www.preschoolcalifornia.org/pg14.cfm
  9. ACPS’ own August 2003 Evaluation of the Kindergarten Preparation Program 2000-2002 demonstrated the value of quality pre-Kindergarten intervention.  Students who participated in the two-week K-Prep program, as compared with a control group of non-participants, had higher average literacy scores, higher average scores on diagnostic assessments of mathematics, were absent from school less often, and were more likely to be promoted to first grade.  This study also cited a May 2003 long-term study by the National Center for Educational Statistics (“The Condition of Education 2003”) which found that children with more exposure to literacy fundamentals in early years developed greater knowledge and superior reading skills than did peers with less exposure.  http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2003067
  10. The more often young children fail in reading, the less motivated they are to continue struggling (National Research Council, 1998). This surrender can happen as early as the middle of first grade (Lyon, 1998) www.ed.gov/pubs/startearly/ch_3.html
  11.  Because poverty is a high risk factor for illiteracy (National Research Council, 1998), poor children’s rates of reading failure are staggering. The Promising Results report (U.S. Department of Education, 1999) found that 68% of fourth-graders in our poorest urban schools failed to read at the Basic level needed for academic success, compared with 38% nationwide. www.ed.gov/pubs/startearly/ch_3.html
  12.  Only one in 10 fourth-graders at these schools can read at the Proficient level. More than half of all fourth-graders receiving a free or reduced-price lunch (a measure of poverty) read below the Basic achievement level in 1998 (NAEP 1998 Reading Report Cared). www.ed.gov/pubs/startearly/ch_3.html
  13.  For decades, studies have shown that … summer reading “drop-off” has predictable, negative consequences for student achievement, particularly for disadvantaged children (Hayes & Grether, 1969; Murnane, 1975; Heyns, 1987; Karweit et al., 1994). www.ed.gov/pubs/startearly/ch_3.html
  14.  It has long been known that, in high-poverty schools, gains made by poor children during the school year are eroded or erased during the summer, leaving them once again behind their better-off peers in the fall (Pelavin & David, 1977). www.ed.gov/pubs/startearly/ch_3.html
  15.  As predicted, cognitive impacts during the preschool time period were greatest for those programs that had a direct teaching component in preschool. http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume6/pre0060031a.html
  16.  The largest impacts on preschool cognitive outcomes and child social-emotional and parent-family outcomes at K-8 were found for those programs that served predominantly African American children. http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume6/pre0060031a.html
  17.  Moreover, it appears that prevention programs, beginning either prenatally or during the preschool years, can have lasting positive impacts on children as they grow into their adolescent and adult lives (Brooks-Gunn, 2003; Karoly et al., 1998; Nelson, Laurendeau, Chamberland, & Peirson, 2001). http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume6/pre0060031a.html
  18.  With regard to the outcome domains of social-emotional behavior and parent-family wellness, there is evidence that preschool prevention programs have positive impacts on these outcome domains. Programs such as Head Start have produced positive long-term impacts on children’s social development (e.g. reduced rates of delinquency and criminal behavior) and their life course as adults (Yoshikawa, 1994;  Zigler et al., 1992). http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume6/pre0060031a.html
  19.  Reviewers have suggested that preschool intervention programs that provide direct educational activities for children in a preschool center are more likely to promote cognitive development than programs that do not have an educational component for children (Cohen & Radford, 1999; Ramey and Landesman Ramey, 1998). http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume6/pre0060031a.html
  20.  There is some evidence suggesting that follow-through programs that continue to provide academic assistance to children when they enter elementary school help to maintain the gains from preschool education programs (McLoyd, 1998; Ramey & Landesman Ramey, 1998). http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume6/pre0060031a.html
  21.  Previous reviews of the literature have suggested that comprehensive, multicomponent programs that provide both preschool education and home-based support have positive outcomes on children’s cognitive and social-emotional behavior and parent-family wellness (Nation et al., 2003; Nelson et al., 2001; Weissberg & Greenberg, 1998; Yoshikawa, 1994).
  22.  African American children may benefit more from preschool prevention programs because of the severe economic disadvantages and the related environmental stressors (high rates of neighborhood poverty, crime, and violence) that they face (McLoyd, 1998)
  23.  According to the 2004 report, The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 40, 65 percent of the former preschool children are high school graduates, compared with 45 percent of the control group, which had no preschool experience. http://www.asbj.com/evs/05/preschool.html
  24. Those in the preschool group were more likely to be employed at age 40 (76% versus 62% for the control group); more likely to have raised their own children (57 % versus 30%); and less likely to have been in trouble with the law (36% arrested 5 or more times, versus 55% for the control group).
  25. Meanwhile, evidence of the preschool’s value continues to mount. Preschool for California’s Children, a September 2004 report funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, found that sustained exposure to good preschool programs appears to advance early learning by an average of about four months. http://www.asbj.com/evs/05/preschool.html
  26. The Economic Policy Institute, in its October 2004 report Exceptional Returns, estimated that providing high-quality preschool for poor 3- and 4-year-olds would cost $19 billion a year initially. But, the report said, by 2050 the benefits would be more than double the cost, providing a savings to the government and taxpayers of $61 billion. http://www.asbj.com/evs/05/preschool.html
  27.  Furthermore, early childhood education, in general, has been supported by neuroscientific studies that indicate that these early years are a critical time in human development and learning, setting the stage for the rest of a child’s life (R. Shore, 1997). http://www.ncsc.info/newsletter/june2003/early_childhood.htm
  28.   Researchers have now isolated several factors that are critical to sustaining long-term cognitive and non-cognitive gains made in these critical years:

·         Parent education and involvement. Children whose parents are more involved in the program reap greater cognitive and non-cognitive benefits.

·         Class size. Small class size is becoming more vital to quality educational programs.

·         Program continuity. Investigators have noted that preschools work better when there is a concerted effort to insure program continuity from year to year

·         Full-Day Kindergarten. There is evidence to suggest that full-day kindergarten graduates experience many of the same benefits as those who attend preschools (L. Jacobson, 2002). http://www.ncsc.info/newsletter/june2003/early_childhood.htm

 

The following comments (29-33) come from an except of  a study entitled “Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children”, Copyright 1995 by Betty Hart and Todd R Risley. It discusses and compares the results of a study on the language gap among children from professional, working class, and economically deprived families.

 

  1. We were awestruck at how well our measures of accomplishments at age 3 predicted measures of language skill at age 9-10. From our preschool data we had been confident that the rate of vocabulary growth would predict later performance in school; we saw that it did… Vocabulary use at age 3 was equally predictive of measures of language skill at age 9-10…. Vocabulary use at age 3 was also strongly associated with reading comprehension scores on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS/U).(B Hart & T.R. Risley, 1995)
  2.   A linear extrapolation from the averages in the observational data to a 100-hour week (given a 14-hour waking day) shows the average child in the professional families with 215,000 words of language experience, the average child in a working-class family provided with 125,000 words, and the average child in a welfare family with 62,000 words of language experience.  ).(B Hart & T.R. Risley, 1995)
  3.  But the children’s language experience did not differ just in terms of the number and quality of words heard. We can extrapolate similarly the relative differences the data showed in children’s hourly experience with parent affirmatives (encouraging words) and prohibitions. The average child in a professional family was accumulating 32 affirmatives and five prohibitions per hour, a ratio of 5 encouragements to 1 discouragement. The average child in a working-class family was accumulating 12 affirmatives and seven prohibitions per hour, a ratio of 2 encouragements to 1 discouragement. The average child in a welfare family, though, was accumulating five affirmatives and 11 prohibitions per hour, a ratio of 1 encouragement to 2 discouragements. ).(B Hart & T.R. Risley, 1995)
  4.  We learned from the longitudinal data that the problem of skill differences among children at the time of school entry is bigger, more intractable, and more important than we had thought. So much is happening to children during their first three years at home, at a time when they are especially malleable and uniquely dependent on the family for virtually all their experience, that by age 3, an intervention must address not just a lack of knowledge or skill, but an entire general approach to experience. ).(B Hart & T.R. Risley, 1995)
  5.  Estimating, as we did, the magnitude of the difference in children’s cumulative experience before the age of 3 gives an indication of how big the problem is. Estimating the hours of intervention needed to equalize children’s early experience makes clear the enormity of the effort that would be required to change children’s lives. And the longer the effort is put off, the less possible the change becomes. ).(B Hart & T.R. Risley, 1995)
  6.  The Montgomery County Public Schools is narrowing the achievement gap by investing in its youngest learners…. Beginning in 1999, the Montgomery County Public Schools embarked on an ambitious plan of systemwide reform. All the strategic initiatives that the district was developing converged in the key area that launched the comprehensive reform effort – early childhood education. … The district faced an indisputable fact: increasing numbers of young children impacted by poverty and language difference were starting school lagging behind their peers in basic literacy skills and they often remained behind. If children were not meeting certain benchmarks by the end of first grade, there was little likelihood that they would be able to read fluently by third grade, an important indicator of academic success in the later years. (Montgomery County School System Report – referencing their kindergarten initiative)
  7. The time before kindergarten is decisive. Students who enter kindergarten with strong foundational literacy skills perform better in the early grades, even if they are not continuously enrolled in the same school. ((Montgomery County School System Report)

 

 

From the From the Executive Summary of the Spring 2005 volume of the Future of Children, a publication of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton and the Brookings Institution see comments 35-37.

 

 

  1. Research findings suggest that what happens to children early in life has a profound impact on their later achievement. Children who enter school not yet ready to learn continue to have difficulty later in life. They perform less well in elementary and high school than their higher-performing peers and are more likely to become teen parents, engage in criminal activities, and suffer from depression, Ultimately, these children attain less education and are more likely to be unemployed as adults. http://www.futureofchildren.org/usr_doc/School_Readiness_Summary.pdf

 

  1.  For the present, however, the most promising strategy is increasing access to high-quality center-based early childhood education programs for all poor three- and four-year-olds. Such a step would measurably boost the achievement of black and Hispanic children and narrow the school readiness gap. http://www.futureofchildren.org/usr_doc/School_Readiness_Summary.pdf

 

  1.  What should the programs look like?

 

High-Quality Learning Environment: The education component must be high-quality, with small class sizes, a low teacher-pupil ration, and teachers with bachelor degrees and training in early childhood educations, using a curriculum that is cognitively stimulating. Few of the child care centers and Head Start programs that now serve low-income children meet these standards.

 

Teacher Training: Teachers should be trained to identify children with moderate to severe behavioral problems and to work with these children to improve their emotional and social skills. Although such training is now being provided by some Head Start and some preschool programs, it is not available in most child care programs.

 

Parent Training:  Parent training reinforces what teachers are doing in school to enhance children’s development. Examples include encouraging parents to read to children on a daily basis and teaching parents how to deal with behavioral problems.

 

Home Visits:  Staff should be available to identify health problems in children and to help parents get ongoing health care for their children. Including optional home visits would allow staff to further screen for serious mental health problems among parents or other behaviors that are not conducive to good child development. Although some Head Start programs and child care centers in low-income communities do link parent with health care service for their children, these programs do not include a home visit.

 

Integration:  Finally, the new programs should be well aligned with the kindergarten programs that their children will eventually attend so that the transition from preschool to kindergarten is successful for children, parents, and teachers.

 

High-quality early childhood programs such as these exist. The challenge for policymakers and practitioners is to extend the reach of these programs and make them available to all low-income children.   http://www.futureofchildren.org/usr_doc/School_Readiness_Summary.pdf

 

 

38.  High quality preschool programs require well-trained teachers. In July 2004 the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education said that "every child from birth to three years deserves a teacher with a bachelor's degree in early childhood education."

 

39. But... according to a 2003 report from the General Accounting Office, the average kindergarten teacher makes $41,000 a year compared to $31,000 for a Head Start prekindergarten teacher with at least a bachelor's degree. On average, teachers in private preschools earn even less. If enough funds aren't earmarked for preschools, particularly teachers' salaries, the gains promised by the Perry Preschool Project and other groundbreaking studies will not be realized (David Weikert, 1987 interview with Fortune magazine). "Otherwise, we will have wasted our money," he said, and we should've built prisons instead."

 

American School Board Journal, Education Vital Signs 2005 www.asbj.com/evs/05/preschool.html

 

 

An Executive Summary regarding report entitled “Developing Capacity and Competence in the  Better Beginnings, Better Futures Communities: Short Term Findings Report (2000)” that began in Canada in 1990 to provide information on the effectiveness of prevention as a policy for children has a wealth of information not only regarding improvements for children but also for parents. There was too much interrelated information to pull anything out that would be meaningful by itself. http://bbbf.queensu.ca/pub.html

 

 

Arlington Preschool Data

And some questions

 

The Arlington Public Schools implements the above policy as staff develops a plan that responds to the results of the Program Evaluation of the Early Childhood Programs. These results revealed that

DOES ACPS HAVE ANY DATA ON HOW WELL ALEXANDRIA’S CHILDREN WITH AND WITHOUT PRESCHOOL DID ON THIS?

DOES ACPS HAVE ANY DATA ON THIS TOPIC FOR ALEXANDRIA CHILDREN?

DOES ACPS HAVE ANY DATA ON THIS TOPIC FOR ALEXANDRIA CHILDREN? HEAD START AND NETWORK PRESCHOOL?

DOES ACPS HAVE ANY DATA ON THIS TOPIC FOR ALEXANDRIA CHILDREN? HEAD START AND NETWORK PRESCHOOL?

DOES ACPS HAVE ANY DATA ON THIS TOPIC FOR ALEXANDRIA CHILDREN?

DOES ACPS HAVE ANY DATA ON THIS TOPIC FOR ALEXANDRIA CHILDREN?

DOES ACPS HAVE ANY DATA ON ALEXANDRIA CHILDREN WHO QUALIFY FOR LUNCH SUBSIDIES WHO DIDN’T ATTEND PRESCHOOL AND  HOW THEY SCORED?


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