Archives for category: Childhood, Pre-K, K
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Preschool: The Issue of the Day

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2014 //
44

Preschool education is one of the few issues on which there appears to be genuine bipartisan support, the Néw York Times reports. It was the centerpiece of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s landslide campaign, and red states like Grorgia and Oklahoma boast of their pre-K programs as models.

The article cites the solid research as well as the critics who dispute the research.

It would be useful for future reporting to show how far behind other nations the US lags in protecting its youngest citizens. Authoritative surveys show we are far behind in providing prenatal care to pregnant women and in supplying high-quality preschool.

I stand with those who speak of the 0-5 continuum. Life does not begin at age 4.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K

21st Century Child Abuse

By dianeravitch
January 29, 2014 //
52

Recently I was listening to a classical music station and heard a beautiful piece of music. The announcer said when it ended that Mozart composed it at the age of 9. I couldn’t help thinking, “but what were his test scores?” When I watched the chorus of the Celia Cruz High School sing the National Anthem at Mayor de Blasio’s inauguration, I had the same thought. It is becoming a habit. When I see a child or youth do something joyfully, I can’t help but think that question, knowing that the scores reflect the ability to answer test questions and don’t address the inner core of the human being.

Yet our current obsession with data has led us to crush the spirits of our children, to make sure that budding Mozarts and Einsteins and those who dream instead of conforming are pressed into the same narrow mold.

Here is a good article that appeared in the Albany Times-Union that raises these issues. I hope Governor Cuomo reads it.

Kristen Cristman writes:

“How many can relate? My experience is just one facet of the truth that conveys this message: There is something very cruel and demeaning about treating the child’s brain like an inanimate machine that must ingest what it’s given and spit out what it’s told. The brain has been colonized; it’s become property of the school, of the state.

“It is horrible for many to wake up exhausted, leave bed, home, pets, and hobbies, travel on an unfriendly bus, and proceed to sit for six hours in an overheated, stuffy building within a cold, confusing, and crowded culture where you have to think certain thoughts at certain times, speak when told to, and remain quiet otherwise. On top of that, when you get home, it’s hours of homework broken only by dinnertime until late at night. When you finally crawl into bed, all you have to look forward to is another numbing day. My parents did not push this behavior; it was simple obedience to school instructions.

“It’s also what you’re no longer able to do that is so depressing. For some, it is balance in life itself that is desecrated and destroyed when high levels of homework are given, formerly in fifth grade, but nowadays earlier. My sister used to play the role of teacher, Miss Mouse, and she’d stand at a chalkboard in the basement and teach me — even give me little homework sheets if I asked. I would love it. The things we could do on our own. But no more time for that come fifth grade. Eager days of playing at liberty outside, climbing trees, constructing snow tunnels, lingering with cheerful breezes, sunshine, and beckoning paths in the woods are over. Zestful days of happily reading books of one’s own choosing, energetically drawing, writing animal reports, identifying rocks and feathers, pursuing the passion of learning on one’s own, and concocting spooky skits in the basement are over.

“How could anyone consider such a life for children, a life without freedom and passion, to be an indicator of a society that is highly developed and free?”

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K

Debate about Cost of Pre-K Grows in NY

By dianeravitch
January 27, 2014 //
96

Elected officials in NY are debating the cost of universal pre-K.

It was a central plank in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s campaign. He won in a landslide.

He wants to pay for it by a tiny tax increase on incomes over $500,000. This would add about $1,000 a year in new taxes, less than dinner for 2 at Per Se or other high-end restaurants of 1%.

Yet the pushback and debate about cost continues. See here.
And here. Everyone thinks it is a good idea, but no new taxes. That is the view of Governor Cuomo, who likes to be seen as a fiscal, pro-business, pro-corporate conservative.

However, let it be noted, It is good for business to have healthy, ready to learn children.

According to a survey published by The Economist, the US ranks 34th of 145 nations in supplying high quality child care.

Other nations recognize the long-term value of early childhood education, which grows more important as both parents work.

Yet we debate whether we can afford to do what research and experience demonstrate is good for children and for society.

When we went to war in Iraq and Adghanistan, did anyone worry about the billions and trillions it would cost? We made a bad bet.

Why not invest in our children? That’s a sure bet, and we can afford it.

Categories Bill de Blasio, Childhood, Pre-K, K

Defending the Early Years: A Toolkit

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2014 //
5

Are you concerned about current efforts to force academic standards onto little children? Are you concerned about the movement to stamp out play? Do you think that little children should experience childhood before they are subjected to the academic treadmill? Do you think that school can and should be more than a boring progression of test prep and testing?

If so, you will enjoy the Toolkit prepared by a prestigious group of early childhood educators called “Defending the Early Years.”

Defending is the right word these days when the nation’s highest policymakers seem determined to turn little children into global competitors.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K

Hey, Tom Friedman, What About the Children?

By dianeravitch
January 19, 2014 //
37

This comment was written in response to a post I wrote about Tom Friedman blaming lazy students and parents for America’s education woes:

“To echo everything you said about the current state of affairs and add one important thing you did not explicitly mention, there is the child; the child entering kindergarten, moving onto middle school and with great hope graduating high school and going on to college. The child developing through adolescence and onto young adulthood. Twelve incredibly dynamic years for which we have come over the past generations to a fairly good understanding of what works best in terms of his or her education. And now in the space of ten years all of this has been turned on its head and every child in a public or charter school in the USA is being cheated by greed. Class size? Who cares! The Arts? Unnecessary. Foreign language instruction? Es eso un problema? PE? Who has the time? A well paid and motivated group of teachers. Why? Isn’t there TFA? Children who should all be well fed, clothed, with quiet and safe spaces at home in which to work, spaces where they are loved and encouraged to love school by their loving families, are now asked to learn more with less!! Students told their teachers are failures, that they are failures, that they will never make it in the competitive global economy without longer school days, less summer vacation, math for which they are not developmentally ready, books chosen by lexile analysis, classes where the teacher is presented via the internet. And more tests, harder tests, longer tests. For the most part children are no longer being hit in schools across the nation, but right now the powerful are wielding a heavy and awful hand against them.”

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Students

Reader: Memories of a Better Time in Education

By dianeravitch
January 18, 2014 //
48

This reader shares memories of a different time. I can vouch for what he or she writes. I remember those days too. The time after school was spent riding bikes or playing pick-up games of baseball or playing in someone’s backyard. Homework was for after dinner. There was always time for play with friends. The family ate dinner together. I went to a high school with about 1,200 students. None of the girls got pregnant. There were no drugs (but some alcohol and lots of fast driving). All teachers were Mr. or Mrs. or Miss. Were they the good old days? In some ways, yes, in some ways, no. But there was not the same degree of pressure on students to perform that there is today. No one committed suicide; the only deaths among youth were the result of reckless driving. We had childhoods.

What is sad is kids are no longer kids but little carbon copies of adults. When I grew up after dinner everyone went outdoors to play all kinds of games. It was all, clean good fun. We’d come home exhausted, sweaty and sleep like logs.
Drive down any residential street and no kids playing outdoors. Each having computers, texting, little islands unto themselves, and families not eating together. So sad.
I cannot remember anything I learned in first or second grade. Cursive writing in third only. Some Viking history in 4th. Frankly, what I would have liked to learn throughout school was about finances, saving money, investing, balancing a check book, raising kids, and more about communicating my needs to my mate.
I am 77 and I have a young friend who has been a second grade teacher for 23 years. I was absolutely APPALLED at the strict learning program for her second graders this year.
I am appalled also at these programs teaching babies to read at some ridiculous age, 13 months is it?
the whole world is upside down and so is the purpose of kids going to school. To learn social graces, share, abide by rules, respect self and others. All of life is about rules and that what we learn in school, but kids are meant to have fun, create, play,and not be stressed to the max and suffer anxiety.
When I was in high school, NO ONE became pregnant. NO drugs. Girls wore skirts, boys pants. If you were sick you were sent home. teachers were called Mr.or Mrs. etc. You wrote 5,000 essays if you talked back, or marred your desk. Later homework was neat
and thrown away to do over if messy.
No one freaked out. We loved our years at highschool.
Gee, Ben Franklin left school at second grade. Many great writers, people left early.
No one had died in my high school.
When my sons were in high school they were pall bearers 6x by the time they graduated.
And, even when younger, I told my sons, as you get older you will see more and more
suicides amongst your peers. This came to pass.
We must begin to see that something is radically wrong in education for so many deaths, suicides, pills, meds, etc. Something is TERRIBLY wrong.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Testing

Stephanie Simon Interviews Nancy Carlsson-Paige

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2014 //
0

Stephanie Simon had the wisdom to interview Nancy Carlsson-Paige, who has steadfastly taught, written about, and advocated for letting children be children. She has old-fashioned belief in the joy of play and creativity, imagination and fun as intrinsic motivation for learning.

Nancy is a hero of American education and a champion of the rights of childhood. She joins our honor roll because she never trimmed her sails, never put her finger in the air to know which way the wind was blowing. She knows true North. Her internal compass is undisturbed by fads.

If only there were more people in higher education and public life with her quiet courage and unwavering integrity. If childhood survives this “dark time” of data-driven decision making, we will remember Nancy and be grateful for her persistence.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Honor Roll

Teachers: Common Core in Kindergarten Class

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2013 //
80

These comments were posted by a kindergarten teacher in response to a post about the Common Core English language arts standards:

I teach kindergarden. The five-year olds have an incredibly tight schedule to keep in our county: an hour of math, hour of science, 2 hours of language arts, half hour of social studies. We kindergarten teachers have had to sneak in rest time and social centers (such as puppets, blocks, housekeeping, playdough) which are so critical to their development.

My class has 13 out of 16 ELL students (Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Arabic & a dialect from India are all represented). Ten of them are free or reduced lunch (aka low socio economics). Two of them never went to preschool at all, and two are on the spectrum, one severely so. All of them have to read by the end of the year. All of them have been required to participate in two close reading activities which required writing sentences.

Both of my formal observations were done during the first 60 days of school. I was criticized because my students don’t do “turn & talk” correctly (they didn’t respond to their peer by telling them why they either agree with or disagree with them). I was evaluated as “lacking in pedagogy” because I asked them to give me facts from a kindergarten level book on stars and they repeatedly tried to tell me what they knew/thought. I was told I require action in pedagogy because the book I used to sing and act out verbs also included several words (such as jump, paint, swing, march, & slide) that were also nouns and because my students could not do charades without my assistance (which I gladly gave but caused that part of the lesson to go on too long). Apparently, my pedagogy went mysteriously missing over the summer, as I’ve never been criticized for that in any of my previous 20 years of teaching experience.

They have been forced to sit through the two close readings that go on for three days each and require them to write notes and then sentences to explain what they learned. My poor babies turned in papers with sentences made of fragments from our fact chart we had made, but they hung their heads because they couldn’t read the sentences they’d managed to write. I hugged them, told them they were great, and gave them chocolate. Then I reported that only 4 of my students passed….another poor reflection on my teaching.

If this is happening in kindergarten, I can only imagine what is happening in later grades. My school is set in a high socio-economic neighborhood and has been an A school for 12 years now; I shudder to think how this affects the less fortunate schools!

 

This comment came from another kindergarten teacher, responding to the post about the treatment of students with special needs:

I am a kindergarten teacher, stressed to the nth degree from having to push 5 year olds in ways that make my blood boil from the wrongness of it. It is immoral to ask 5 year olds to write facts from a story they are listening to and to write sentences when they are only learning to read & write!!

For trying to show that this is too difficult for my students during observations, I have been given far lower scores that I’ve ever received in 20 years of teaching.

Then there is the matter of my own sweet son. He is 12 years old, has ADHD and feels like a failure. His teachers tell me that his thinking in math and science amaze them; that he comes up with solutions and ideas that they have never thought of….yet he is failing because he forgets to hand in homework or write his name on papers, which is clearly the executive functioning skills which he lacks. They tell me he is immature and needs to repeat the grade, yet stay in gifted because he is so obviously bright….how can these coincide? He is already stressed because his failing grades and bullying on the bus, but now they want to retain him????

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Common Core

Wisconsin Researchers: Poverty Influences Brain Development in Children

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2013 //
61

A new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison concludes that poverty has an important negative effect on brain development among young children.

“Poverty may have direct implications for important, early steps in the development of the brain, saddling children of low-income families with slower rates of growth in two key brain structures, according to researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

“By age 4, children in families living with incomes under 200 percent of the federal poverty line have less gray matter — brain tissue critical for processing of information and execution of actions — than kids growing up in families with higher incomes….The differences among children of the poor became apparent through analysis of hundreds of brain scans from children beginning soon after birth and repeated every few months until 4 years of age. Children in poor families lagged behind in the development of the parietal and frontal regions of the brain — deficits that help explain behavioral, learning and attention problems more common among disadvantaged children.”

The study found no differences at birth between children from homes with different income levels:

“The maturation gap of children in poor families is more startling for the lack of difference at birth among the children studied.

“One of the things that is important here is that the infants’ brains look very similar at birth,” says [Seth] Pollak, whose work is funded by the National Institutes of Health. “You start seeing the separation in brain growth between the children living in poverty and the more affluent children increase over time, which really implicates the postnatal environment.”

“The study used brain scans provided by the NIH’s MRI Study of Normal Brain Development, data that excludes children whose brain development may have been altered by a number of factors: mothers who smoke or drank during pregnancy, birth complications, head injuries, family psychiatric history and other issues. As a result, the findings may underestimate the actual deficit developed by a more representative sample of children from poor families.

“The study found no meaningful difference in gray matter between children of middle-income families and those from relatively wealthy ones.”

Studies like this make me wonder whether the billions and billions poured into phony “reforms” like VAM and privatization are a massive distraction (some might say hoax), diverting our attention to the #1 problem in our society: generational poverty.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Poverty

John Thompson: How Mayor de Blasio Can Fix Some of Bloomberg’s Failures

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2013 //
6

Historian-teacher John Thompson analyzes a recent review of the Bloomberg administration’s education initiatives and explains how the private education funders wasted $2 billion.

The great mistake of the Bloomberg administration was its unalloyed faith in accountability, the threats of punishment and sanctions.

As the budget expanded, the number of reading specialists for the early grades plummeted–“from 1,158 in 2002 to 637 in 2013.”

By contrast, “de Blasio respects experts who estimate that ’75 percent of the city’s four year olds — that is, about 73,000 children — would attend full-day pre-kindergarten if it were available and readily accessible.’ Wouldn’t it be nice if Bloomberg had invested billions of dollars filling that real-world need and not his personal need to sort and punish?”

Thompson is very hopeful that de Blasio sees a better path for school improvement–through support, early childhood education, and coordinated social services–not A-F grades for schools.

He writes:

“Now, New York City has a mayor who respects social science and understands the need to strengthen the social and institutional infrastructure of poor communities. Now, NYC “can counter the social isolation common in these poor neighborhoods and temper the impact of poverty and low social capital on educational failure and lifelong poverty.” Soon, researchers may not need to be so circumspect in choosing their words about the need for:

A targeted, neighborhood-centered approach to poverty would weave together school improvement with coordinated human services, youth development, high-quality early education and child care, homelessness prevention, family supports and crisis interventions.”

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Childhood, Pre-K, K, New York City
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