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Bredesen’s universal pre-K: daycare for the middle class?
Posted By katie allison granju
Frank Cagle is no fan of Bredesen’s emphasis on pre-K:
It is apparent that Bredesen plans to have universal pre-K in place when he leaves office. It is his signature program and it will be his legacy.
Tennessee’s education system is plagued with low test scores, and it has never been adequately funded. The test scores reveal the real need in the state is more emphasis on fifth through eighth grade. Every dime spent on pre-K is a dime not spent on the critical grades identified as needing improvement.
But if pre-K is a way to prepare children for school, get them off to a good start, and show improved results in the early grades, perhaps it would be worth the money. But is pre-K an educational tool or is it daycare for the middle class? (At-risk kids already have Head Start.)
The state Department of Education and the Comptroller’s office commissioned a study by Strategic Research Group on the efficacy of the pre-K program. Very few people have taken any notice of it, except state Rep. Bill Dunn, a Knoxville Republican, a budget hawk and a supporter of accountability in education.
The best you can say about the results is that they are inconclusive. The only clear consistent result is that African American girls benefit from pre-K reading and language arts, putting them ahead of non-pre-K non-white girls and comparable to white non-pre-K girls. There is little good news about boys, white or black. The study seems to support other studies that suggest boys (of any color) are not mature enough for a school setting at four years old.
The overall results of this study find most evidence of improvement to be inconclusive or show wide variations between the groups tested and between subject areas. The study’s main recommendation is, of course, more studies as the pre-K program moves along.
Bredesen has set us on a path for a fully-funded statewide program that will be impossible to kill, impossible to fund, and with no proof it provides long-term benefits to the education system.
Mar 27th, 2008
