Obama: Let's make high-quality preschool available to ALL low-income and middle-class families

[Cali_Democrat]

Obama Wants 6 Million Children In Preschool By The End Of The Decade
The Huffington Post

President Barack Obama's new goal of enrolling 6 million children in high-quality preschools by the end of the decade includes 3-year-olds, in addition to the 4-year-olds who are part of his earlier Preschool For All initiative, according to a White House official.

Obama noted the new goal in the middle of a lengthy speech last week at Northwestern University about the economy and domestic priorities. A White House official told The Huffington Post this week, on background, that the new number includes children ages 3 and 4.

"If we make high-quality preschool available to every child," Obama said last Thursday, "not only will we give our kids a safe place to learn and grow while their parents go to work; we’ll give them the start that they need to succeed in school, and earn higher wages, and form more stable families of their own. In fact, today, I’m setting a new goal: By the end of this decade, let’s enroll 6 million children in high-quality preschool. That is an achievable goal that we know will make our workforce stronger."

The Preschool For All initiative was first detailed during the president’s 2013 State of the Union address, and seeks to provide “all low- and moderate-income four-year-olds with high-quality preschool, while encouraging states to serve additional four-year-olds from middle-class families.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/09/president-obama-preschool-goal_n_5953916.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Warren Stupidity: let's make high quality school free to all from pre-school to post doctorate,

and while we are doing that, let's eliminate the terrible debt burden Republican administrations have inflicted on an entire generation of young adults by eliminating student loan debt.

[riderinthestorm]

2. + 1 nt

[Cali_Democrat]

3. Indeed

My post from earlier this year....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025067830

Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama are stirring up some trouble when it comes to student loans

From Warren....

Elizabeth Warren draws attention to her student loan plan

US Senator Elizabeth Warren is trying to stir up support for her student loan bill ahead of an expected vote in the Senate next week.

Warren’s bill would let college graduates with existing federal student loans refinance those loans at the lower rates now offered. To help pay for the program, her bill would phase in a minimum tax in 2015 for individuals with adjusted gross income between $1 million and $2 million.

On Monday, Warren and US Representative John Tierney, a fellow Massachusetts Democrat who has sponsored a similar bill in the House, are planning to attend an event where President Obama is expected to address the issue of college affordability.

A Congressional Budget Office report this week concluded the student loan refinancing portion of Warren’s bill would increase federal spending by about $51 billion from 2015 to 2024 while the tax portion would increase revenues by about $72 billion.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/06/06/senator-warren-eyeing-vote-student-loan-bill/tgVnTFMScGjLB4Ifq1MmLJ/story.html

From Obama:

Obama to sign executive order easing student loan woes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will issue an executive action on Monday aimed at making it easier for young people to avoid trouble repaying student loans, a White House official said on Sunday.

The president will sign an order directing the secretary of education to ensure that more students who borrowed federal direct loans be allowed to cap their loan payments at 10 percent of their monthly incomes, the official said.

Federal law currently allows most students to do this already. The president’s order will extend this ability to students who borrowed before October 2007 or those who have not borrowed since October 2011, the official said.

The administration says this action will help up to 5 million more borrowers, although it will not be available until December 2015.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014821689

[Doctor_J]

9. no kidding. The president and Duncan are making it MORE expensive

instead of less. Maybe they are cooking up an "ACA for education" - funnel a few billion dollars from the working people to the already rich to provide lousy education to a few poor people.

[CubicleGuy]

4. I've never understood this big push for preschool

Back when this old geezer went to school, it was just accepted that school began with kindergarten and that was it. When did preschool seemingly become a required thing? When it became a requirement for both parents to have to work in order to stay above water financially? Is this more a thing to get the kids out of the house so that both parents can get back to work, or is it really about the kids. I can't help but wonder.

[leftstreet]

5. Invent program. Throw public money at it. Then privati$e it

A very Orwellian speech...from an Administration currently trying to privatize and profitize education

[Iliyah]

8. Oh geez pre-school is free in my neck of the woods

and I must say a very good program to boot. After school care for my fourth grader and seventh per child is 50.00 dollars From August - June, free snacks and field trips. The programs starts right after school until six p.m.

Thank you Governor Brown and the Democratic Legislation, California, and thank you Pres O as well.

[surrealAmerican]

6. Parents don't just magically not need to work if their children have no preschool.

Those children end up in (sometimes inadequate, sometimes costly) "day care". If preschool is available, and tax-supported, parents of 3- and 4-year-old children will be better able to support themselves and their children, and the children will have a better experience, which has been proven to have long-term educational benefits.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. because the data is compelling

The Effects of Early Educational Intervention on Crime and Delinquency in Adolescence and Early Adulthood. In: J. D. Burchard and S. N. Burchard, (eds.) Prevention of Delinquent Behavior. Beverly Hills, Ca: Sage Publications.

This chapter is a longitudinal overview of the Perry Preschool Project (initiated in 1962), using both self-report and official records of juvenile and adult criminal activity. Detailed demographic tables are included that compare schooling, family composition and employment, and household densities at entry (1962-65) and 11 years later; preschool vs. control groups are compared in the latter table. Excellent sections are presented with details of the study and the theoretical framework, the basis of which is that educational success is seen as an effective prevention of delinquency. Also included are detailed descriptions of the statistical analyses used.

Simply stated, the data showed a statistically significant reduction in criminal and delinquent activity for those who were en-rolled in the preschool. Both juvenile and adult records showed reductions in the areas of proportions of persons arrested/charged, total numbers of arrests, and instances of property crimes. They state: "Early intervention reduced arrests by half, and the proportion of persons arrested from one-half to less than one third." Tables were presented giving official records data and self-report data; it would have been informative to look at the correlation between those two sets of data. Educational outcomes were also compared for the two groups, again showing that the preschool experience had lasting, positive effects for the participants.

http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/reports_research/bib_eval.html

States as red as Kansas have taken the initiative to get their kids into preschool programs because it just makes sense. Economic sense.

Abstract

This paper estimates the rate of return to the HighScope Perry Preschool Program, an early intervention program targeted toward disadvantaged African-American youth. Estimates of the rate of return to the Perry program are widely cited to support the claim of substantial economic benefits from preschool education programs. Previous studies of the rate of return to this program ignore the compromises that occurred in the randomization protocol. They do not report standard errors. The rates of return estimated in this paper account for these factors. We conduct an extensive analysis of sensitivity to alternative plausible assumptions. Estimated annual social rates of return generally fall between 7 and 10%, with most estimates substantially lower than those previously reported in the literature. However, returns are generally statistically significantly different from zero for both males and females and are above the historical return on equity. Estimated benefit-to-cost ratios support this conclusion.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272709001418

[WillowTree]

10. Oh.......Absolutely!! God forbid any human life form be allowed to just be a child anymore.

Why wait 'til they're 3 or 4? Let's get the little bastards started in the delivery room and if they can't count to 20 and recite the alphabet by discharge time, just drown them.

Why.......in the name of all that's good.......can't we just commit to providing them with high quality day care? You know. With puzzles and finger paint and modeling clay. And on nice days, playgrounds with slides and see-saws and those dreaded, homicidal swings. Let them play and become socialized with other children without being subjected to lessons or expectations beyond learning good behavior and, perhaps, bathroom habits.

No child should be subjected to any kind of "school" that young. It's just plain sick to be talking about preparing them to "earn higher wages" at ages when we should just be letting them develop into happy and kind people. They only get to be children and do that particular developing for a short while and only at the beginning of their lives. Let's let that happen in its own good, natural time. They'll have to be spending a lot of years learning that other junk.

[frazzled]

11. Preschool does NOT mean "lessons"

I sent both my kids to preschool beginning at age 3. There were no lessons. Ever. There was a lot of learning.

Preschools--or that is to say, good preschools--are focused on the developmental needs of young children, who acquire various skills at different times and in different measure—physical, emotional, cognitive. The goal is to create a happy, confident, and well-rounded child in each of these areas, who, by dint of being happy and confident and well-rounded, is ready to begin learning when they enter school.

My kids didn't need any "lessons." They both could identify letters, count, etc. (Heck, my son taught himself how to multiply by the time he was 3). What they both did need were socialization skills and a chance to acclimate themselves to a group setting and an "authority" figure outside of the home. And that's what they got in spades: learning to be around other children, learning to operate confidently without parents around, learning to sit in a circle and attend for brief periods to a teacher leading common activity. And there were tons of songs, art activities and supplies, toys and physical equipment, story times, etc. There was learning about how other children were the different and the same, how teachers need to be listened to and respected. Lots of learning and lots of fun.

You might say, "who the heck needs that?"; they can get it at home. Well, no. Especially no for kids who come from challenging backgrounds. With parents who aren't able to read to them, who can't provide nice toys or books, or who aren't home much and are tired from working when theyy are. But even no for kids even from well-educated, loving homes, with plenty of stuff.

Preparing a child to acquire the social and listening and group skills needed to begin learning is best done in a social, group setting. And it's joyful and fun.

I say preschool for ALL.