A teacher comments:
Arne Duncan cannot be taken at his word.
I sometimes teach things in Pre-K that I taught in K against what I know is right. My administrators want to see graphs, charts, accountable talk and levels of depth of knowledge.
When I hear the K teachers giving lessons on nouns and pronouns, verbs and adjectives (yes using that vocabulary), I cringe.
Also my school ordered desks a few weekas ago to replace the kindergarten tables. And the teachers, who are good, defend this saying, “Well they need room for all their books.” No painting easel, few blocks, hardly any dramatic play or manipulatives.. It’s a wonder the state still gives an early childhood license (birth to 2nd grade.)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I would rather keep my children at home than send them to a pre-K program that had desks. I almost feel the same way about grades K through 2. Too much academic b.s.
Good decision. I’ll be you shock yourself in the future, like I did, and consider homeschooling and/or independent school.
Right! The point of early childhood is to provide EXPERIENCES! Not kill and drill which is what so many teachers are forced to do or risk losing their jobs!
I’m not against gathering data; it’s just too easy to come to the conclusion you intend. Here is a company capitalizing on the drive for early information: http://teachingstrategies.com/
I wasn’t sure about sending my kids to our district’s public Montessori, but the more I read about what’s happening in traditional schools, the more I’m getting on board with Montessori. The school my kids are in is a preK-8 school and now I’m struggling with at what point to shift them. Oftentimes Montessori only extends through 3rd grade so maybe 4th is a good transition year. I could wait until the end of elementary and transition them at middle school. I could just keep them where they are and wait to shift them until high school. It’s a wait and see game. I do know that for preK and K, I’m really glad my kids are in this school. Desks? You’ve got to be kidding me.
Shannon, you are making a wise choice. I hope that by the time they are in middle school, we will have reclaimed our public schools. Yes, WE can (and WILL)!
I sure hope so. My goal in joining the BATs and being so active in my union is to take back our schools so that my kids and my students will have a chance at academic success.
Shannon,
I like ans endorse your choice. Unfortunately, the proponents of reform aim to destroy public schools and have patents like you abandon public education.
So sad that the reformers, BROAD,Gates,Jebbie, & Bloomie would never send their kids to these Reform schools!
If I understood correctly, you suggest that I have abandoned public education. I have not. I want to be clear that my school district has transformed two of our elementary schools into Montessori schools. These schools are still public schools that serve all district students. Ours is an open enrollment district so each family can choose which school to attend if they can provide transportation when they choose a school outside of their catchment. They put one of the Montessori schools one of the highest poverty neighborhoods in the district so that even our poorest families had access to this option. Tacoma really is an innovative district. I’d be happy to share more about our programs if you’re interested. Email me at smities@hotmail.com or check out the district website at http://www.tacomaschools.org.
I understand your decision and do not see it as abandoning public education. My son was in PreK at our local public school for several months. It was too overstructured and the Pearson worksheets they did week after week to learn letters and numbers bored my son to death. The only “art” they ever did was coloring in pre-made pictures with crayons– and they did this to “build hand strength” for writing letters and numbers of course. My son has naturally high-energy and has a hard time transitioning, and it was clear that he was beginning to be labeled as the “bad kid.” As a result, he started acting like one. We noticed terrible behavioral problems as he resisted being forced into a mould. We finally decided to withdraw him and we’ve noticed nothing but improvement. His curiosity is starting to come back. His attitude has changed. We will not send him to kindergarten next year. And I have not abandoned public education. In fact, I am more resolved than ever to speak up, act out, and do what I have to to try to change things for the better in the hopes that my children might one day have a positive, enriching public education. I also fully understand that refusing the entire system is not an option for most people, but if you do have that option and your child is drowning in the system, you don’t just leave him in to prove a point.
Sharon: Shift before middle school. The middle school grades IMO are one challenge after another. The kids are beginning puberty, social as well as academic growth sometimes clash. Even the size of the school is larger and the population more diverse.
My daughter is a preschool teacher. She has been lucky to work in some fine pre-k settings. Here’s a list from her: dress-up clothes, puppets, a toy kitchen with play food and cookware, blocks, vehicles, a train set, easels, paints, play-dough, markers, scissors, glue, a water table, magnifiers, puzzles, pegboards, play money, sequence cards, counters, sorting trays, scales, measuring tools, music for dancing and finger plays, dolls and a doll house, crayons, many types of paper, games, playground toys and a playground to use them on. Also books everywhere in the room. Don’t ALL young children deserve these things?
YES! YES! YES! (Please do not forget the importance of a carpet space for whole group meetings/circle time, developing language skills through community building discussions and sharing–some administrators do not want more than 30 min. daily of whole group time in grades 1 and 2, particularly–do not get me started on THAT!). First of all, students deserve to be a CHILD and experience the wonders of childhood as they unfold (not as they are forced upon them). They deserve to be taught in developmentally appropriate ways (which if you are allowed to do that correctly can still thoroughly introduce and cover a wide variety of skills/concepts in the process but in
child respectful and child friendly ways. Let’s not forget about the professional organization called NAEYC which advocates and educates for early childhood education most definitely BIRTH THROUGH SECOND GRADE! They have recommended guidelines. Why aren’t we following them or allowed to follow them in most of what is mandated? It has already been determined what is best for kids of this age–let us DO it! It should be required reading for policy
makers and legislators making decisions that affect
young children. Children need encouragement to inquire,discover,explore, and enjoy learning in positive ways. We put so much pressure on them to perform at increasingly younger ages. As a result,sadly, the view from their stationary desk is no longer the revered “beautiful day in the neighborhood” experience that childhood/lower primary once was. Which is why we need to continue to advocate for our students and do what we can to protect and provide what we know they desperately/critically need and so rightfully deserve.
That’s also a kindergarten list. And at least 1/4 of that stock belongs in a first-grade classroom, with a handful of games in 2nd.
And don’t forget that whole-group sharing is the best kind of educational exercise. Witness Graduate Seminars.
The Des Moines Register had quite an anti-preschool editorial this morning, going as far as to say that certified preschool teachers are a waste of money and that anyone can teach it.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20130625/opinion03/306250066/the-register-s-editorial-preschool-should-reach-those-most-need
Another misguided misreading of research that looks only at “test scores” as the measure of success.
From the report:
“It is unrealistic to expect a study such as this to produce unequivocal evidence of significant positive impact. There are two major reasons for this, one having to do with implementation and one with data limitations. Strong positive effects are unlikely given only nine months of implementation: Educational programs are complex, require substantial human capital and human resources, and are typically implemented unevenly.”
In other words, the data was statistically questionable, limited by several very important factors, and not suitable for a genuine analysis but they forged ahead anyway and now the sacred data is being used by the press to bludgeon Pre-K programs and licensed teachers as useless and possibly harmful.
Another day in the reform looking glass world. Disgusting.
You know, this is child abuse. Parents, please introduce the lawyers to any/all school districts which withdraw the play and the JOY of learning that inherently belongs to our youngest children. The teachers are not going to be able to get it done by themselves (if at all, given the employment threats that permeate our public schools today–in other words, shut up, put up or there’s the door)–time for a class action lawsuit in each & every district that insists on persecuting our little ones.
You blame the school districts, but they are only doing what is expected…and what they have to…because of state lawmakers holding schools (and yes, teacher AND administrator jobs) accountable at such high levels. You think schools want to make children start earlier and earlier? Go after the people who are actually responsible for taking the fun out of education…the people who make the laws that expect so much out of children.
Sounds like they are making a factory to me. That is not what young children need. They need to be able to play, interreact and create while learning through experiences which the teacher is supposed to help happen. Art is supposed to be introduced at the earliest time. The representative from Boeing, yes Boeing, stated that young children need art from birth and I agree. It is stimulating and that is what they need is to help establish those pathways especially between the right and left hemispheres for creativity and thinking outside of the box which is what creativity is.
In 10-15 years, there will be a great awakening . . . the powers that be will discover that “they” made significant, detrimental mistakes by imposing rigor and relevance on kids who are only 4, 5, and 6 years old. Children in early childhood education need to learn through socializing, exploring, creating, and wondering, not become masters of the reading and writing process/doing first grade work. Ugghhh . . .
This is so sad! I thought that it was bad in kindergarten with Reading, Writing, and Math Workshops. What is next? CCCS for fetuses?
I have joked for the past ten years in Florida that flash carding your baby in utero is a must or your child will be labeled a reading failure upon arrival.
Surely there’s an app for that! And for introducing the child, in utero, to the concept of a variable.
: )
Just the other night I read a book with my girls that we checked out at the library (and which will be going back very soon) called “Baby Brains”. It’s about a mother who reads to her baby in utero and plays music and whatnot so he’ll be very smart. On the day after he’s born he asks to go to school. The day after that he goes to college and he’s a doctor a couple weeks after that. I guess the book is supposed to be cute and under different circumstances I might actually find it so. But the way things are going, too many people will think it’s supposed to be non-fiction.
I’m glad you mentioned that early childhood extends to second grade. In my experience, administrators are more tolerant of developmentally appropriate practices in preK and kindergarten, but once those children hit first grade, it’s pedal-to-the-metal teaching to the standards. Primary students are not miniature fifth-graders and must be instructed in the way they can best learn.
This is a travesty. If the medical field has medical malpractice, then this is educational malpractice. Our field has truly been subverted by the ignorant.
YUP. And it’s just as much malpractice to teach to the standards at 3-12.
Pushing academic skills and ignoring what is appropriate for preschoolers causes problems for them right from the start. Many remedial, RTI & special education referrals could be avoided if the children were treated with the attention and respect that all humans deserve. It is painful to watch the emotional pain inflicted in children and their parents, only for meeting goals mandated by uneducated, non caring and self serving administrators and corporate greed mongers. This has been going on too long! I feel so terribly hopeless about the future of doing the right thing for children. It has gooting out of control since I began teaching in 1970. I keep pointing out the wrongs and hope it makes a difference.
How right you are, H.A. I started teaching in 1974, and I taught Early Childhood Special Education for 13 (lucky!) years. I was also the after-school director for a preschool and, during a summer, was interim director. Taught Developmental (bridge from E.C. SpEd) Kindergarten and general ed. K as well. As Vivian Gussin Paley (University of Chicago Lab School–renowned teacher of young children–author of well-known, respected EC books) said, “The work of children is play.”
I’m going to take a phrase from those reformers (and it makes sense here, where it doesn’t when they say it)–
OUR. CHILDREN. CAN’T. WAIT. STOP THE NONSENSE–no, wait, I mean to say CHILD ABUSE, for that’s what it is–NOW! Parents, as I stated above, PLEASE contact the lawyers–file class-action lawsuits. It seems that the only place where these people HAVE to listen is in courts of law. GO to your legislators–SOMEONE is bound to listen and act. YOU have the power to make it happen for your children.
Have at it, folks.
Whoa, now, everybody. Let’s not get too far into the false dichotomy. Clearly, play IS the child’s work – but it’s not an either/or choice between play and academics. The real truth is all of the developmentally appropriate academic content can be learned through children’s free and supported play during the preschool years… in the right environment with properly prepared teachers. Emphasizing play will result in MORE learning. Desk-sitting, adjective-memorizing, flash-card drilling ridiculousness does NOT result in academic learning for 3- and 4-year-olds. Pushing third grade strategies down to preschool simply does not work! That’s what drives me crazy. People who know nothing about how preschoolers learn are changing the way they are ‘taught’ in order to achieve better test scores when, in fact, they are choosing the exactly wrong way to get where they want to go. It would be like someone who has never been fishing would go out on a boat with an expert fisherman and demand that they must come back with twice as many fish as the day before…. and then tells the fisherman to stop using rod/bait/hook to accomplish this goal and just yell at the fish until they all jump in the boat. That strategy may work with dogs, but do you think they will come home with ANY fish?? I think we really MUST demand – to legislators, administrators and funders – that they MUST stop trying to bring teaching strategies into preschool until they have some actual evidence that those strategies will result in real, deep, useful learning.
I agree with the 3 comments above from H.A. Hurley,retiredbutmissthekids, and karen nemeth. What is wrong with these legislators driving developmentally inappropriate curriculum for the young? Seriously, would anyone want their child or grandchild to come home at the end of the day and upon being asked the question “So, how was pre-school today?” to reply with “Well, I sat in my desk, took an assessment, watched my data go up on the data wall…teacher told me that I did not meet the objective on the assessment so we conferenced and set a new target goal, there will be another assessment
on tomorrow’s agenda so when you ask me this question
again I’ll let you know if I meet my benchmark.” SICK! Children should be blowing bubbles, not filling them in. With 4th of July coming up, let it be a true independence day. Adults, get to the $1 store buy some bubbles and playdough or better yet make huge vats of it at home using homemade recipies. (About the only redeeming excercise in bubbling in the scantron form is in developing fine motor skills. It could be a center activity–bubble in ALL of the bubbles, it could help with number, letter, and color recognition… find the A’s and color those red, find #3 and color the B blue!) Go outside with your child, step in the puddles, dig in the dirt, watch something grow, observe the wonder of growing something. Get down on the floor (no desk required or need to plug something in or press an APP) to put together a puzzle. If you really want to plug something in go plug in the sprinkler and let the kids run through it in the yard (does anyone even do that anymore?) Get a desk and a big bouncy ball as the seat for it (while writing or dipping fingers in fingerpaint and listening to, being exposed to and learning to appreciate a variety of music simultaneously–get the creative juices flowing), let your child sit on the desk for a new perspective or get a sheet and drape it over the desk to build a fort. Sit underneath with a flashlight and learning activities and watch the excitement, engagement, and learning increase. Make sure to read, read, read; to each other just for the pure enjoyment and pleasure of reading, hearing a new story, discovering new characters, imagining fictional fantastical things! (And yes, that’s probably not even a word…make some new ones
up.)And, at the end of the day you may be surprised how much learning, discussion, discoveries, and enchantment took place positively. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the same thing could be said for the school day? But, you see, it’s not the parents who need to be told these things, it’s the policy makers. They have got to understand that the PROCESS is just as important as the product. It would behoove them to understand that the prescribed process affects the outcome of the product and if you chose a developmentally appropriate process there would be a natural increase and gain in achievement. In my opinion, Harold can proudly write all over the data wall (preferably in Superintendents offices, Governor’s mansions, school board meeting rooms, and I hate to say it, but yes, even the White House) with his purple crayon for those that insist on and require data. Our data needs to have meaning and until the process used to gather that data is meaningful to young children, then to a large extent the data is meaningless. There has got to be a better way. Take back childhood…let us teach in developmentally appropriate ways so children can really learn..let them blow bubbles instead of filling them in.
Don’t forget the sidewalk chalk for a plethora of opportunities for written and artistic expression, hula hoops so your child can experience SUCCESS when jumping through hoops, and jumpropes for inreasing a healthy heart rate and letting them independently be in control of turning the handles and adjusting the pace. If you really want to go wild, do an EXPERIMENT and get the ingredients for making rock salt homemade ice cream in a ziplock bag. Can’t you just taste the sweetness? Life is short; childhood is even shorter. Celebrate it, preserve it, and cherish it. Have a “fantastical” day! I looked it up…it IS a word ☺.
I teach an inclusion preschool class, and in the three short years I’ve been teaching PreK, I’ve seen academic standards be raised exponentially, while social-emotional development and play skills have been roundly ignored. I’m being taught proper developmental practices in my M.Ed. programs, but my district is telling me that my kids have to score above a certain threshold on a standardized test for us to keep our funding (and my job).
And yet it’s still better than K in my district. My PreK students get a massive shock when they move up to K: no more naps, no more snacks, no more art, blocks or dramatic play. They’ll be lucky to get outside play for 15 min/day, and music for 30 min/week. And they better be writing at least one paragraph before the end of the year, or their teacher will catch hell. Our K still has tables, but they’re just symbolic at this point.
Your school is definitely abusing the children right from the start with all the educational malpractices that go on around high-stakes testing.
There is nothing they won’t touch when it comes to other people’s children. I can assure you-This is not going on in the fancy, elite private schools they send their own kids to. So sad to rush childhood. It goes by too fast to begin with. Children need time to develop. Play is learning Arne. So obvious you know nothing about young children or how they learn.
Define “abandoning public education.” I save my child’s emotional and academic health by placing her in an Independent school (no it’s not a “private” school) and yet continue to write, advocate and study public schools MORE HOURS PER DAY than any of the local public school parents. Most parents in my neighborhood say they’re “supporting public schools” but are really simply adding to head count. They don’t question authority, they aren’t educated about Common Core, they don’t even bother to send brownies for the bake sale. They aren’t even protesting the handover of their children’s data.
Some “support,” I say.
Public school parents and advocates need to befriend independent school parents. Most of us left because we agree with you and are making huge sacrifices as a result.
As opposed to the many public school parents in my neighborhood who spend zero time speaking up about their school, who says their kids are “resilient” and will be “fine wherever they go,” and say they would have sent the kids to independent school but instead want to spend their money on trips like going to Egypt or India each summer.
If you don’t get more parents and citizens to make wiser choices about how they spend their time and money, our schools will be stolen permanently and completely by corporations.
And frankly, since my daughter’s public kindergarten had 30 kids, I felt that I was helping public schools by reducing headcount.
I am aggrieved that I cannot send my child to a developmentally appropriate, diverse local public school.
However, given the way school districts are drawn up, we found much more diversity at our local independent school.
As a former kindergarten teacher, I think this is nuts.
Last year more than ever before I was asked by nervous kindergarten teachers at my school if this little girl or that little boy was one of mine, because said child only knew 8 letter sounds or 2 sight words or couldn’t write his or her name or copy September from the board. The one of mine question referred to whether the child was on my special education caseload. I’d explain that a lack of exposure and time to learn is not the same thing as having a disability. It seems that these standards are causing children to be thought of as low before they even have a chance.
“It seems that these standards are causing children to be thought of as low before they even have a chance.”
This year because of the new evaluation system coming into NYC, schools like mine have gone back to tracking the children. ( The new regulations say schools can track again.) I was asked to list my Pre-K children into three catagories: high middle and below level in order for Kindergarten placement.. It was devastating to apply labels to children so young. As I listed the children, I couldn’t help but write notes about many of them hoping the administrators who formed the classes would have more of a sense who these children are. As it turns out the ITC (Integrated Teaching Classes) across the board received the “below level” children even before the children with IEPs were placed. This is against the reason these classes from K up were formed. The deformers are heading our schools back to the dark ages and are finding new ways each year to fail our neediest children. Also class sizes will be increasing next year especially since K in NYC will be mandated. Many of my ELLs were tested and found not to need language support next year. This is outrageous because we all know over the summer young English language learners children will not be practicing their English language skills. They will need assistance in Kindergarten and now they will not receive the help. This is another topic un to itself.
The district nearest to mine (which is supposed to “better” than mine; read a lot more white and well-off) tracks from K up too. I was shocked to hear that from a PreK teacher who works there, but from your comment, I guess tracking is coming back to the rest of the country too. *sighs*
I am an early childhood educator and my dream was to be a first grade teacher. I moved to California from Ohio and it is a big process to get my certification transferred over. I fell into preschool and have been there since. I really enjoy it especially working as a director. I have decided that I do not really want to go into public school anymore because of the mandates that are being pushed onto teachers. Like the posts at the beginning says blocks ect are being taken away. There is more of a focus on math, reading, language and not in a developmental way. Class sizes have increased and there is no room for a teacher to really put her/his own individuality into the teaching. It is sad that standards that are not developmentally appropriate for the age group are being used as an assessment of achievement.