Greg Anrig of the Century Foundation here refutes the criticisms of universal pre-K, particularly those published by Grover Whitehurst of Brookings, who was George W. Bush’s research director.
If you were reading this blog in 2012, you may recall that Whitehurst fired me as an unpaid senior fellow at Brookings–a position I had held for 15 years, on grounds that I was “inactive.” At the time, my book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education,” was the #1 social policy book on amazon.com.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We have to be able to guarantee, however, that the reformistas cannot and do not get their claws into the creation of universal pre-K .
You are so correct
Can you see it now…3 year old studying for Benchmarks…
3 year old fails end of 9 weeks tests…
Teacher fired for low scores of 3 year old…
Attention PHD’s…Please sign up for Teach For Toddlers..
This is my biggest worry about universal pre-K, that it’s a another race to begin some of the horrible education policies even earlier in a child’s life. I can picture 3-4 year olds sitting on pillows on the floor staring at iPads.
Dear Ms. Ravitch, I wonder if you know that you are not alone.
In 1913, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller, The president of the American Psychological Association, and many other luminaries ignited a national conversation: public education should begin at age three. That year more than a hundred articles were published in newspapers and magazines on the subject of ECE.
They were all supporting Maria Montessori, a ceiling smasher. In the 19th century she became a medical doctor, the first woman to do so in the history of Italy. And she became a professor of anthropology at the university of Rome.
In 1906, she gave up her university chair to work with a group of sixty young children of working parents in the San Lorenzo district of Rome. She chose to work in a world of poverty, a world without safety nets; supported by the business community that hoped that the vandalism being done by unsupervised children would be reduced. It was there, working with the poorest of the poor, that she discovered the value of early childhood education.
In 1915, on her second U.S. visit, she conducted a teacher training course and addressed the annual conventions of both the National Education Association and the International Kindergarten Union. The committee that brought her to San Francisco included Margaret Wilson, daughter of the U.S. President
Things looked better and better, but then, although she had the support of Howard C. Warren, president of the American Psychological Association, and other luminaries, sadly, universal ECE was rejected by the American people.
Montessori was right, but the forces against her were too powerful.
In his introduction to “The Montessori Method”, (Maria Montessori, 1964), Professor J. McV. Hunt writes that, among other things, Montessori was unable to win against the opposition of “the emerging behavioristic school whose conceptions were shortly to become dominant.”
And, Hunt writes of another challenge: her ideas were at odds “with the conceptions of the intelligence-testing movement.” Her “notion that school experience for three- and four-year-olds could be significantly important for later development was deprecated.”
And in 1914, a leading, progressive educator, H. K. Kilpatrick, a colleague of John Dewey, wrote a book on Montessori, supporting the generally accepted idea that teaching children reading, writing and counting before the age of eight was, at best, a waste of time, might possibly be harmful.
He wrote that Montessori was about fifty years behind the times.
And Carl Rogers gets similar treatment. Twenty-five years after his death a video has been posted ridiculing him. Belittling him brilliantly. Three minutes and thirty seconds of video leading to the thought that someone must want to minimize:
“I believe that the testing of the student achievements in order to see if he meets some criterion held by the teacher is directly contrary to the implications of therapy for significant learning.” –Carl Rogers.
Watch “Carl Rogers’ evaluation” at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSy9aPq5tMk
Ms. Ravitch, you, Montessori, and Rogers are alike in, at least, one way. All three of you have knock-out CV’s.
Here is Carl Rogers’ history:
1902, January 8: Carl is born in Oak Park, Illinois
1919, Enters agriculture program at University of Wisconsin, Madison
1922, Travels to the Far East, Japan, Korea, China
1924, June 23: Receives BA in History from University of Wisconsin
1924, Enrolls in liberal Union Theological Seminary, New York City
1925, Summer: Serves as visiting pastor in Dorset, Vermont
1926, Leaves Union for Columbia University Teachers College
1927, June 1: Receives MA from Columbia University
Teachers College
Emerging Theory
1928, Joins Rochester Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (RSPCC) as child psychologist
1929, Appointed director of the Child Study Department, RSPCC
1931, March 20: Receives doctorate from Columbia University Teachers College
1931, “Measuring Personality Adjustment in Children” is published
1939, “The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child” is published
1940, Accepts position at Ohio State University as clinical psychologist and full professor
1940, December 11: Client-centered therapy is “born” as Carl addresses the University of Minnesota’s Psychological Honors Society
1942, “Counseling and Psychotherapy” is published Theory in Practice
1945, Moves to the University of Chicago to start Counseling Center
1945, “Counseling With Returned Servicemen” is published
1946-1947, Serves as president of the American Psychological Association (APA)
1951, “Client-Centered Therapy” is published
1954, “Psychotherapy and Personality Change” (with Rosalind Dymond and others) is published
1956, Receives the APA’s first Distinguished Contribution Award
1957, Accepts appointment at University of Wisconsin, Madison in psychiatry and psychology
1961, “On Becoming a Person” is published
Global Influence
1964, Moves to La Jolla, California, to join staff of the Western Behavioral Studies Institute (WBSI)
1967, “The Therapeutic Relationship and It’s Impact: A Study of Psychotherapy with Schizophrenics” is published
1968, With several WBSI colleagues, leaves to form the Center for Studies of the Person (CSP)
1968, “Man and the Science of Man” (with William Coulson) is published
1968, “Person to Person” (with Barry Stevens) is published
1968-1977, Works with “encounter groups” and larger organizations
1969, “Freedom To Learn: A View of What Education Might Become” is published
1970, “Carl Rogers on Encounter Groups” is published
1972, “Becoming Partners: Marriage and Its Alternatives”
is published
1977, “Carl Rogers on Personal Power: Inner Strength and its Revolutionary
Impact” is published
1980, “Freedom To Learn for the 80’s” is published
1980, “A Way of Being” is published
1975-1985, Travels extensively in the U.S., Europe, Latin America, Russia, Japan, and South America to facilitate Person-Centered Approach workshops
1985, The Rust Peace Workshop, Austria
1987, January 28: Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Congressman Jim Bates
1987, February 4: Carl dies in La Jolla, California
Fired by Grover Whitehurst from Brookings. A compliment. Heck, I was fired by Paul Vallas from Chicago public schools, and that was a fine day, too. Groucho Marx has something to say about not wanting to be a member of clubs that were led by guys like Whitehurst and Vallas…
Or was that another Marx?
Maybe in the ideal world where ALL children have stable home lives, have parents who are educated with a rich array of vocabulary who talk a lot with their children and take them to all kinds of places, who have lots of books at home in addition to taking them to the local library.. maybe then universal pre-k won’t be essential (even if it is beneficial for the social component). If “ed reformers” have their way as to what a universal pre-k would look like… I might have to rethink which is the lesser of the evils. Would I want my pre schooler sitting on a rug, “reading” a morning message, not getting recess, taking a battery of tests that a teacher must proctor one on one (thus my student would often be taught by a substitute teacher)? Would I want my child to be anxious about what school means? If we “non” ed reformers finally get a say in what the pre school experience should be (music, dance, center activities, finger painting, learning walks etc) then I AM IN FOR UNIVERSAL PRE K. Time to send the “ed reformers” packing.
I totally agree, Art, but how will it be funded if there is no accountability? The right will say, “Never too young to start collectivist indoctrination.” Just because Pre K is good for anyone who does the kind you describe doesn’t mean that the government mandating and especially running universal pre K is “good.” That’s the fundamental fallacy of the progressive approach to education, that what’s good in the home and provided by private family pre K education will work the same for every single kid in the nation. I doubt it will happen, just because of the cost. Look what happened to ObamaCare. Just because good health insurance is a real good, doesn’t mean that the government is competent to carry it out. So, for me, no universal Pre-K if the government, especially the federal, is running it. It’s just exploiting a good for political gain, for the sake of acquiring constituency. Lets agree to repeal ObamaCarre and drop universal government run Pre-K, and THEN and only then, let’s talk about serving the poor through private enterprise.
It’s possible that the administration has actual educational and social benefits in mind when they push pre-K. But I can’t helping thinking there’s another more likely explanation. Pre-K is the ripest area in the growing investment opportunity that is American education. Ripe because unlike K-12, service providers will not have to compete with pre-existing public education.
The language “make available” tells the whole story. They are not saying “let’s expand the public school system to cover toddlers.” They are saying lets funnel more tax dollars to private corporations to create these facilities.
It has been expensive and messy to try to dismantle public education in order to clear the ground for investors and corporate interests to move in. Pre-K is appealing because the field is already open.
Educational benefits or not, I have serious misgivings about becoming a culture where we take children out of the home at age three. I know there are some complicated factors to consider, but my misgivings are certainly not assuaged when we’re taking three-year-olds out of the home in order to provide financial growth opportunities for the education vulture crowd.
Michael Rottman: Well said.
Also:
Those who are trying to promote “cheapness”, that is exactly what they will get, a cheap second or third rate or worse “education”.
In the Western New York area many of the school districts offer universal pre-k.
In Buffalo, I worked at a school which had a three year old pre-k class. As the librarian I worked with them to improve their vocabulary through songs and stories. You see, many of these children from poor homes where so far behind in their language development that even two years of pre-k wouldn’t bring them into the normal range. Some children had such a limited vocabulary that they could only grunt and point. One child used to hit his head on the floor, he was that frustrated by his inability to communicate.
There is a definite need. I paid for my kids to go to pre-k. If I felt this was important for my own children, I definitely think it is important for everyone else’s children. And especially for kids who don’t have the advantage of a knowledgable parent willing and able to provide an enriching home environment.