ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

There are natural periods of time in a child's development where many things "kick in" such as self-correcting their spelling, etc. And while I would love to see those who cannot afford to go to preschool have the opportunity (and for those children who have a negative home environment as well), let's not jump on this bandwagon unless the research is thorough, accurate and honest in its goals and motiviations.

Perhaps the WSJ would like a subscription to Bloomberg News in the UK?

These findings would seem to contradict the Standford U. and U. of Calif.-Berkeley results as cited in a Wall Street Journal opinion article 8/22/08, “Protect Our Kids From Preschool,” which indicated children lose preschool gains by fourth grade. This U.K. study indicates a math performance advantage associated with preschool education that was sustained through age 10 years old. This contradiction would seem to support the notion that the U.S. problem isn’t with preschool per se; rather, the problem may lie in our public school systems’ inability to sustain those preschool gains. In fact, it would seem that the deficit occurs around social-emotional supports for children in public school grades. Since the authors, Dalmia and Snell seem concerned with where the U.S. dollars are being spent, perhaps they would want to encourage putting our money where our mouth is and focus on enhancing our public educational system as well as providing the preschool advantage to a greater number of children.